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THE SHORT COURSE SERIES 


THE: POWER ‘OF (THE SPIRE 


\ 


Volumes Already Published i a 


The Redemption of Man. — Ne i 7 
By Prof. T. B. Kizpatricx, D.D. ep 

The Power of the Spirit. Sih oF 
By Rev. Stuart GARDINER, M.A. . \ a : 

ie | 


A Cry for Justice: A Study in Amos. ie 
By Prof. Joon E. McFapven, D.D. f 
The Beatitudes. ee: 
By Rev. Rosert H. Fisuer, D.D. 


The Lenten Psalms. 
By the Epiror. 


The Psalm of Psalms. 
By Prof. James Statxer, D.D. 


The Song and the Soil. 
By Prof. W. G. Jorpan, D.D. 


The Higher Powers of the Soul. 
By Rev. GrorcE M’Harpy, D.D. 


Jehovah-Jesus. 
By Rev. THomss WuitTEetAw, D.D. 


The Sevenfold / Am. 
By Rev. THomAs MarjorrBanks, B.D. 


The Man Among the Myrtles. 
By the Eprror. 


The Story of Joseph. 
By Rev. Apam C. WeEtcu, B.D., Th.D. 


The Divine Drama of Job. 
By Rev. CHARLES F. AKED, D.D. 
A Mirror of the Soul: Studies in the Psalter. 
By Rev. CANON VaucuHAN, M.A. 
In the Upper Room. 4g 
By Rev. D. J. Burra, D.D., LL.D. a 
The Son of Man. 
By AnprEw C. Zenos, D.D., LL.D. 
The Joy of Finding. 
By Rev. ALFRED E. GARVIE. 


Fhe Prayers of St. Paul. 
By Rev. W. H. Grrrrita Tuomas, D.D. 


The Emotions of Jesus. 
By Prof. RoBpert Law, D.D. j 
Belief and Life. d 
By W. B. Setsré, M.A., D.D. 
The Prophecy of Micah. 
By Rev. ArtHur J. Tart, D.D. 
The Expository Value of the Revised Version. 
By GrorcE Mriuican, D.D, 


V7 , | 
The Sbort Course Series 


EDITED BY ' 
Rev. JOHN ADAMS, B.D. \ 


THE 
POWER OF THE SPIRIT 


THE NEED OF THE CHURCH 


BY | 


Rey. F, STUART GARDINER, M.A. 


NEW YORK 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1920 


TO THE 


MEMBERS OF THE TWO CONGREGATIONS 
IN 


COLERAINE AND KINGSTOWN 
WHOM IT HAS BEEN MY PRIVILEGE TO SERVE 
IN THE MINISTRY OF OUR LORD AND 


SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/powerofspiritneeOOgard 


PREFACE 
a 


Tue subject discussed in these studies is one 
which the Church of Christ, by the solemn 
events of Providence, and by the tremendous 
problems by which she is faced, is to-day 
being summoned by God seriously to con- 
sider. ‘The truths contained in them are 
not so much theoretical, as urgently prac- 
tical. The Church is up against a task too 
great for her. And she knows it, and is 
conscious of her weakness. Here is set forth 
the source of that invincible Power she needs 
for the accomplishment of her mission. God 
is calling her to a united endeavour “ to get 
at’ this Power, the Power of the Holy 
Spirit, and to use it on behalf of the coming 
of His Kingdom. 

The work of the Holy Spirit is God’s en- 


vil 


Preface 


deavour to enter into fuller and closer union 
with Man for his spiritual regeneration and 
renewal. 

The Scriptures are a partial record of 
Man’s experience as God has worked out 
His gracious purpose in him. The life of 
each saint is another page in that sacred 
Book. | 

But not till the people of God, made 
perfect in holiness, are gathered together 
in the Heavenly City, shall the story be 
complete. 

This book is a humble attempt to outline 
how God works out His plan, in Man, and 
how men may co-operate with God in the — 
fulfilment of His purpose. | 


N.B—It is suggested that the Scripture 
references prefixed to each chapter should 


be carefully studied. 
F, STUART GARDINER, 


Viil 


- 


CONTENTS 
ee 
I. THE Hoty SPIRIT IN NATURE AND MAN 


Il. THE Hoty SPIRIT IN THE BLESSED 
TRINITY . y : A 


III. THE HoLy SPIRIT IN OUR LORD JESUS 
GHRIST . : d ; : 


IV. PENTECOST: THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 
CHURCH . ? : 4 5 


V. PENTECOST: THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 


CHURCH— (continued) . ‘ 4: 


VI. THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE INDIVIDUAL . 


VII. THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE INDIVIDUAL 


(continued) : : ‘ ‘ 
VIII. SINS AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT . ¢ 
INDEX . F 3 Bi el a a 


PAGE 


17 


35 


55 


79 


95 


‘is to dented the New Testament, ee the 
Christian Sages 


I 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN NATURE 
AND IN MAN 


«©The secret of the world was mine, 
I knew. I felt... 
. . - What God is, and what we are, 
What Life is, how God tastes an infinite joy 
In infinite ways, our everlasting bliss, 
From whom all being emanates, all power 
Proceeds: in whom is life for evermore, 
Yet whom existence in its lowest form 
Includes; . . . and all lead up higher, 
All shape out dimly the superior race, 
The heirs of hopes too fair to turn out false, 
And Man appears at last.’ 
Brownine’s ‘* Paracetsus.’ 


3 


I 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN NATURE 
3 AND IN MAN} 


= ol 


Proressor I'YNDALL, in his famous address 
as President of the British Association in 
1874, quoted with approval the saying of 
Lucretius, “‘ The mechanical shock of the 
atoms is the all-sufficient cause of all things,”’ 
and that of Giordano Bruno, ‘“ Matter the 
universal Mother who brings forth all things 
as the fruit of her own womb.” ‘Then he 
made the following declaration, “ By an 
intellectual necessity I cross the boundary 
of the experimental evidence, and discover 
in that matter, which we, in our ignorance 


1 Scripture Rererences.—Gen. i. 1-2, vi. 1-3, xli. 38; Ex, 
XXViii. 3, xxxi. 1-4; Num. xi. 25; Deut, xxxiv. 9; Judg. iii. 
10, Vi. 34, xi. 29, xiii. 25, xiv. 6, 19; 1 Sam. x. 5-6, 10, xi, 
6, xvi. 14; 1 Kings xxii, 23; 2 Chron, xv. 1-2; Neh, ix. 20, 
30; Job xxvii. 3, xxxii. 8, Xxxili. 4; Ps. li. 10-11, civ.29- 
30, cxxxix. 7; Isa, xi. 1-3, xxxii. 15, Ixi, 1-3, Ixiii, 10-11; 
Ezek. xxxvi, 27, xxxvii, 1-143 Joel ii. 28-32. 


) 


The Power of the Spirit 


of its latent powers, and notwithstanding 
our professed reverence for the Creator, 
have hitherto covered with opprobrium, 
the promise and potency of all essential 
life.” It is true that later in the same 
address he admitted that the views of 
Lucretius, Bruno, Darwin, and Spencer 
might be wrong, or might require modi- 
fication. And in this he was certainly 
correct. For as men continued to reflect 
on the great problem of the origin of all 
things, it became increasingly clear that the 
materialism of ‘Tyndall did.not cover all the 
phenomena. A striking indication of the 
recoil which had taken place is that in 1898, 
twenty-four years later, Sir William Crookes, 
the President for that year, referring to the 
dictum, did not hesitate to say, “I should 
prefer to reverse the apophthegm, and to 
say that in life I see the promise and potency 
of all forms of matter.” To-day there is 
no more authoritative voice in philosophy 
than M. Bergson. And in such a book as 
Creative Evolution, God is conceived of as 
pure creative activity. He is unceasing life, 


4 ~ 


Spirit in Nature and in Man 


active freedom. Spirit is regarded as an 
emanation from God. He believes that 
there is a spiritual force behind evolution, 
something in the Universe which science 
cannot weigh, measure, or calculate, and. 
that if Nature is one, its unity rests on a 
spiritual element. Such leaders of Science, 
Philosophy, and Psychology as Ward, 
Eucken, Bosanquet, M‘Dougall, Lloyd 
Morgan, and William James are agreed that 
mind has not emerged from a merely physical 
and mechanical soil. In fact Haeckel, in his 
Riddle of the Universe, is now about the sole 
remaining representative of a thorough- 
going materialism. And he is regarded as 
out of date. We are indeed compelled by 
the latest investigations of modern biology, 
physiology, and psychology to grant con- 
sciousness a self-subsistence of its own. 
Such a life, though connected with the 
body, is a reality, and the consciousness 
of possessing it will convince a man that 
though he knows not how, the life of the 
soul has had a heavenly origin, and wends 
its way towards its heavenly home. The 


5 


The Power of the Spirit 


general trend, therefore, of the latest scien- 
tific and philosophic thought is to teach us 
that we are living in a spiritual world in 
the midst of the present world: that that 
spiritual world has in the first place to be 
known, and that this knowledge has then to 
be turned into an experience of the soul. 


1. [Tue Spirit oF Gop 1n RELATION TO 
THE UNIVERSE. 


Man is confronted by the material Uni- 
verse, and is for ever trying to understand 
it. ‘That we, with our minds, can in-some 
measure apprehend it, is an evidence that 
it originates in a Mind akin to our own. 
The Universe is no chaotic flux. It 
is an orderly system of things. Atoms 
combine in mathematical proportion. It 
is a coherent Universe in which each 
element combines and harmonizes with the 
rest. And all the links binding the various 
elements together are obviously spiritual. 
Moreover, the Universe is one. ‘The same 


chemical elements, obeying the same laws, - 


6 


2 


Spirit in Nature and in Man 


are found in the stars as in this world. All 
proceeds from one Mind, from one Spirit. 
Now what is the relation of this Spirit to 
the Universe He has brought into being? 
Pantheism teaches us that all Nature is 
God. This makes Him'a part of Nature, 
and thus, in its ultimate effect, Pantheism 
is not distinguished from Materialism. De- 
ism speaks of a distant God, who transcends 
Nature, and is wholly separate from it: 
who, having once started the vast machine, 
leaves it to its own working, and does not 
any longer interfere. The truth lies in a 
combination of these two theories. God is 
at once in Nature, and above Nature. We 
may find an analogy in the relation between 
our own spirit and body. Our spirit is in 
our body, and yet it transcends it. It 
controls and directs it. Akin to this is the 
relation between the Eternal Spirit and the 
Universe He has brought into being. 

God’s Immanence 1n Nature 1s Progressive.— 
He dwells in it by His Spirit. He is in all 
Nature. He is in tree and flower, and every 
living thing. For all live in Him and by 

7 


The Power of the Spirit 
Him. By Him the life of the world is 


evolved on an ever-ascending scale. But it 
is only when man is reached, with his reason 
and his conscience, that God by His Spirit 
becomes in a high degree immanent in 
Nature. For we must never forget that 
man is a part of Nature. Man has a moral 
and spiritual nature, because God by His 
Spirit is in man. And the evolution of 
the spiritual nature of man is the result of 
the indwelling and working in him of the 
Holy Spirit of God. Through man’s con- 
science and moral nature the Spirit of God, 
for the first time, finds a voice which can 
bear witness to Him, and through these 
God can reveal Himself. The spiritual 
element everywhere is one. It means that 
God’s Spirit is there. It is true that in its 
beginnings (for conscience has a natural 
history of its own) the voice of God can only 
faintly and imperfectly express itself. But 
implicitly and potentially the Spirit of God 
is there from the beginning in its fulness, 
and attains gradually a freer development 
and power; till we come to the voice of 
pes) 


Spirit in Nature and in Man 


God speaking clearly in the conscience of 
the Saint, and the Spirit of God controlling 
the spirit of man. Thus gradually has God 
prepared for Himself a home, a shrine in 
the soul of man. 


2. Tue Spirir or Gop In Man. 


The Spirit of God is immanent in every 
man, as He is also in all Nature. Every 
normal man is possessed of a reasonable and 
moral nature, however undeveloped, to 
which the Spirit can appeal, and in which 
He works. And the brooding Spirit of 
God is ever striving in love with man, and 
seeking a closer union with him, and a 
fuller dwelling within him. Many a man 
is not conscious that the Spirit of God is 
at work in his soul, and yet He is there. 
We have all been witnessing in connection 
with the present war, with a kind of awe, 
the most magnificent and splendid of the 
Christian virtues, such as utter unselfishness, 
self-sacrifice, courage, and devotion to duty 
shown by men who are not consciously- 


9 


The Power of the Spirit 


religious. Yet who can doubt that the 
Spirit of God is in their souls, and that it is 
He who has thus inspired them? He is 
using them as He used Cyrus of old to do 
great things for His Kingdom, and He is 
saying to them what He said to him, eT 
have surnamed thee, though thou hast not 
known Me: I girded thee, though thou 
hast not known Me.” But may we not 
say that God does not fully guide and 
control a man, until he yields himself to His 
holy dominance? In every race of man, 
and in all the religions of the world, we see 
the movement, and the inspiration of the 
Holy Spirit of God. In all races, and in 
all ages, man has sought after God, inspired 
thereto by upward surgings of the Spirit of 
God within. However dim these gropings 
after God, as expressed in the other re- 
ligions of the world, there is some truth in 
them all, and some element of the Divine. 
And as God: hateth nothing that He hath 
made, so we may be sure God looks with | 
compassion and love on these gropings 
after Him, hampered and distorted as 
10 


Spirit in Nature and in Man 


they are, through the weight of indwelling 
sin. oe 

This Immanent Spirit is spectally seen in 
Israel.—It is the true glory of Israel that in © 
her the Spirit of Ged found the most con- 
genial sphere for His operations. There He 
was able to develop His gifts for the good of 
mankind more fully. In Israel we see a 
moral and spiritual development such as we 
see in no other nation, and an ever-deepening 
consciousness of God, and understanding of 
His Will. And Israel realized that all that 
was best and noblest in her was due to Him, 
and so ascribed to Him the skill given to the 
artificers who conceived the building and 
ornamentation of the Tabernacle, the wis- 
dom of their judges, the herculean feats of 
Samson, the martial prowess of their military 
leaders, the ruling capacities of their kings, 
as well as the inspiration of the prophets. 
All this is fitted to remind us that the spring 
and inspiration of every noble achievement 
in literature, in science, in art, is the Spirit 
of God working in the spirit of man. The 
poets, the discoverers, the great artists are . 
II 


‘The Power of the Spirit 


all, even when not conscious of it, God- 
inspired men. ‘Thus more and more the 
Spirit of God dwelt and wrought in Israel, 
until at last, “‘in the fulness of time,”’ one 
was found, a pure virgin, worthy to receive 


“that holy thing” fashioned by the Spirit - 


of God, and God became incarnate in Man, 
and a Man became truly the Son of God. 
Here God’s immanence in Man found its 
culmination. Here was One fully indwelt 


by the Spirit of God. 


3. Tue Earztier MANIFESTATIONS OF THE 
SPIRIT 


It is noticeable that in Israel, in the earlier 
part of the history, notions are expressed 
regarding the working of the Spirit of God 
which are crude. Nothing, for instance, 
can be more entirely unethical than the 
exploits of Samson, yet we are told that 
“the Spirit of God came upon him,” when 
he accomplished them. Again, we are in- 
formed that “‘ an evil spirit from the Lord ”’ 
came upon Saul, and that God sent “a 

12 


= 


Spirit in Nature and in Man 


lying spirit”? into the prophets, who pro- 
phesied falsely. And, generally speaking, 
it is worthy of remark that in the Old | 
Testament it is the abnormal which is 
ascribed to the Spirit of God, as seen in 
trances, in visions, in religious excitement or 
ecstasy, and, of course, in the inspiration of 
the prophets. When Saul met some of them, 
we are told “ the Spirit of God came upon 
him ” also, and he went on and prophesied, 
until he came to Naioth in Ramah, and he 
stripped off his clothes, and prophesied 
before Samuel in like manner, and lay 
down naked all that day, and all that night. 
Wherefore they say, “ Is Saul also among the 
prophets?’ Whatever was the nature of 
this religious frenzy, there was little that 
was moral or spiritual about it, as is clear 
from his subsequent conduct and career. 
And the remarkable thing is that seldom is 
the Spirit of God, in the Old Testament, 
referred to as the source of moral purity 
and excellence. Only in such exceptional 
utterances as the Psalmist’s do we find it, 


as when he prays, “Take not Thy Holy 
3 


The Power of the Spirit 


Spirit away from me,” or when the prophet 
prays, “Thy Spirit is good, lead me into 
the land of uprightness.” There is, on the © 
whole, a marked reserve in the gift and 
operation of the Spirit of God in the Old 
Dispensation. It had to do with the ab- 
normal, rather than with the moral, and was 
the special gift bestowed on such persons 
as the prophets. But the greatest minds 
among them, such as Joel, looked forward 
to a time when the gift of the Spirit would 
not be the special reserve of the few, but 
the common heritage of all. ‘“ And it shall 
come to pass afterward, that I will pour 
out My Spirit upon all flesh: and your 
sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 
your old men shall dream dreams, and your 
young men shall see visions, and it shall 
come to pass that whosoever shall call on 
the name of the Lord shall be saved.” 

It is not, therefore, surprising that in 
the New Testament, after Pentecost, there 
should be also traces of the abnormal in 
the effects of the Spirit’s working, as seen, 
for instance, in the speaking with tongues, 


14 


Spirit in Nature and in Man 


and the temporary ministry of the New 
Testament prophets. These charismatic 
gifts were apt to lead to disorder and con- 


fusion in the first Christian assemblies, and 


Paul had to give some stringent regulations 
intended to keep these manifestations within 
bounds, so that all things might be done 
“ decently and in order.” And the Apostle, 
though he claims that he spoke with tongues 
more than they all, yet adds emphatically, 
“In Church, I would rather say five words 
with my own mind for the instruction of the 
people than ten thousand words in a tongue.” 
He saw the perils connected with these and 
all scenes of religious excitement, and he 
taught that all the gifts of the Spirit were to 
be valued in proportion as they could be 
used for the edification of the Church. It 
was this Apostle’s great contribution to our 
understanding of the work of the Spirit 
that he showed that His main work had to 
do, not with the abnormal, but with the 
moral and spiritual, that His presence and 
power were no longer to be reserved for the 
exceptional illumination of a few inspired 


15 


The Power of the Spirit 


men, but were the common heritage of the 
whole Christian Church, the common pos- » 
session of every believing man and woman: 
and that the Spirit was given to aid us in 
the ordinary life and duty of each day, and 
to produce in all His people those “ fruits 
of the Spirit’? by which they should be 
able in all things to adorn their Christian 
profession. 


I] 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 
BLESSED TRINITY 


Resets: “Though i: nitely mysterious, the ‘revelation is hed Aan fi) 
rat one God as ! _ other, Son, and Holy Spirit fulfils the ‘Ag 
“ profoundest, the richest, and the noblest Slay hike of ¥ 
the Divine. Life.””—Dr. Date. ; 
ltd i ve 
aide 
i : / 


II 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE BLESSED 
TRINITY? 


Mr. H. G. We tts, in his book, God, the 
Invisible King, has given us the very latest 
religion, and he writes with all the earnest- 
ness and passion of one who for himself has 
found God. His is so interesting a figure 
in the intellectual life of to-day, and his 
books have given so much instruction and 
delight to many, that one hesitates to say 
anything derogatory about what has meant 
so much to him, although he does not spare 
the deepest and tenderest convictions of 


1 ScripTuRE ReFERENCES,—Matt. vii. 22-23, xii. 31, xiii. 30, 
41, xvi, 27, xxv. 31-33, xxviii, 19-20; Luke i. 35, xii. 3-9; 
John i, 1-18, iii, 16, iv. 24, v. 16-18, x. 14-15, 30-38, xi. 27, 
Xv. 263 xvi. 13-14, XVii. 2-5, 24, xx. 28; Acts xiii, 2; Rom. 
i. 3-43 1 Cor. ii. 8-11, vi. 19, viii. 6, xii. 11, xv. 24-27, xvi, 
22-233 2 Cor. iii. 3, iv. 3-6; v. 10, xiii, 14; Eph, ii.213 
Phil, ii. 6-11; Col. i. 15-17; Tit. ii. 13; Heb. i. 1-5, 
ii. 5-10, ‘ 

i 


The Power of the Spirit 


Christians, but lashes them with needless 
scorn. On many pages, it is evident 
that his conception of Christianity is very 
partial, and that he criticizes what he has 
failed to understand. His own theory ap- 
pears to be that the ultimate of existence is 
a Veiled Being which seems to know nothing 
of life or death or good or ill. Of that 
Being, whether it is simple, or complex, 
or divine, we know nothing. The new 
religion does not pretend that the God of 
its life is that Being, or that He has any 


relation of control or association with that ~ 


Being ; yet coming out of this Veiled Being, 
proceeding out of it in a manner altogether 
inconceivable, is another lesser Being, an 
impulse thrusting through matter, and 
clothing itself in continually material 
forms, the maker of our world, Life, the 
Will to be. And it is this second Being, 
the God within us, the God of our Life, our 
Comrade God, whom Mr. Wells worships, 
and to whom he prays. About this Being 
he writes much which is wholly admirable, 
and with which every Christian will agree. 
20 


The Holy Spirit in the Trinity 


But the fact seems to be that the God whom 
he thinks he has discovered is in reality 
none other than God the Holy Spirit, the 
God within us, our Comrade God, and that 
the truth concerning Him has been long 
ago much more fully and felicitously set 
forth in the pages of the New Testament 
than by Mr. Wells. 

When we try to make clear to biflee 
what is meant by the Holy Spirit, we are 
at once led up into a transcendental 
realm. We are face to face with the pro- 
found mysteries concerning the Being and 
Nature of God. And when we meditate 
on these things, we must do so in the pro- 
foundest humility, acknowledging that we 
have no plummet wherewith to sound these 
depths. In the Revelation given to us we 
must be conscious that the words used are 
but symbols and hints, and that the Divine 
Reality, that abyss of Ineffable Light and 
Love, must be something infinitely greater 
than we are able to imagine or conceive. 


21 


The Power of the Spirit 


f 


1. How THE DoctriNE OF THE TRINITY 
WAS ARRIVED AT. | 


The doctrine of the Trinity was arrived 
at by the Church, not by the way of philo- 


sophical speculation on the nature and 


being of God, but by the way of spiritual 
experience. The revelation which God has 
given us of Himself has been a progressive 
one. Before Christ, He was first of all made 
known to men as the God of Israel, and then 


as the one God of the whole world. “Hear, | 


© Israel, Jehovah our God is one Lord.” 
No internal distinctions are attributed to 
Him. There is no teaching of a Trinity 
in the Old Testament, though there may 
be dim foreshadowings of this. In Christ 
there was given a new and richer manifesta- 
tion of God. He appeared as a man, leading 
a man’s life. But He claimed to stand in 
a unique relationship to God. And the 
disciples felt that there was that in Him 
which vindicated His claim. And so the 
Church of the New Testament worshipped 


Christ, prayed to Christ, and gave Him 


prayed i 


The Holy Spirit in the Trinity 


Divine honours. Ananias described Paul 
as having authority from the High Priests 
to put any one in chains “‘ who invokes Thy 
Name.” Yet the God who sent Ananias 
to Paul is still “‘ the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ,” the first abiding object 
of worship, and Christ was exalted and 
honoured with Him. The Church viewed 
the Risen and Ascended Christ, in whom 
they believed, as exalted to the right hand of 
God, and as having entered into the life 
and power of God, because they felt that 
His rightful phce was there. One can see 
the beginnings o. this conviction, for in- 
stance, in the mina. “! the Apostle Peter, 
when, in the presence u* 2 sublime mani- 
festation of power, he exclaimed, “ Depart 
from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 
He felt that He who was with him in the 
boat belonged to a different order or cate- 
gory from himself. He realized that Jesus 
was not as other sinful men. Thus. the 
effect of the life of Christ on earth was to 
give Him a place as Son beside God the 
Father, and so to enrich the conception of 


23 


The Power of the Spirit 


God’s Fatherhood by that of Sonship. God 
was thenceforth thought of as the Father, 
and Jesus as the Son of the Father. ‘Then 
after Christ’s Ascension came the abiding 
activity of the Holy Spirit. Christ had 
foretold this gift, and always in terms in- 
. dicating Being, as distinct from mere in- 
fluence, and including a will and a purpose. 
After Pentecost, the Church realized that 
the promised Helper had come, and was 
present with them. The energy of the 
convincing and renewing Spirit who wrought 
on the world through them was such that 
they felt that the results achieved could 
not be due to any merely human agency, 
but must be traced to a Divine influence 
proceeding from a Divine Person. Thus 
the Divine Spirit came to be adored and 
worshipped with the Father and the Son. 
This is the living practical Trinity, the only 
Trinity known to the primitive Church. 
And so believers were baptized into “ the 
Name of the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost.” ‘Three are mentioned, but 
the Name is One. And the same is seen 


24 


The Holy Spirit in the Trinity 


in the benediction—‘ The grace of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and 
the communion of the Holy Spirit be with 
you all.” | 


2. How To ConcEIVE OF THE TRINITY. 


As the Church began to reflect on these 
wonderful facts of experience, it was in- 
evitable that the question should be raised, 
“Tf there be but one God, how are we to 
think of Him as also three—the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Spirit ?”’ And so it has 
endeavoured, not always wisely, to set forth 
a doctrine which would in some measure 
correspond to the facts of experience. It 
is much to be feared, however, that the 
popular conception of the Trinity is little 
short of a belief in three Gods. If sacred 
art only be taken as any indication, how 
often have we seen in the great continental 
galleries representations of God the Father 
as an old and venerable man, with a long, 
white beard, seated on a throne, while 
beside Him stands or sits the Son, the Holy 


25 


The Power of the Spirit 


Spirit being rather vaguely indicated by a 
Dove hovering over the heads of both, or 
else completely displaced by the figure of the 
Mother of our Lord, benignant and tender, 
interceding with her sterner Son? All this 
is shockingly crude, so far as religious truth 
is concerned. And if such ideas are present 
in the mind, it is impossible to deny that 
such thinking is open to the charge of be- 
lieving in three Gods. But we must never 
forget that the doctrine of the Trinity is 
an endeavour to affirm the Unity of God. 
And we must so conceive of the Trinity in 
Unity as jealously to safeguard this sacred 
truth. It is almost incredible to us that the 
great Schism which took place in the eleventh 
century between the Western or Roman 
Church and the Eastern or Greek Church 
was over the question whether the Holy 
Spirit proceeded from the Son as well as 
from the Father. The Western Church 
affirmed, the Eastern Church denied this. 
To us in these days, subtle metaphysical 
distinctions suggested by such phrases as 
“eternal generation,” “the procession of 
26 


The Holy Spirit in the ‘Trinity 


the Spirit from the Father and the Son,” 
have hardly any meaning. There must surely 
be some possibility of setting forth the 
Nature of God, in so far as He has revealed 
Himself to us, in such a way that the plain 
man, who is not a professional theologian, 
can understand it. The doctrine of the 
Trinity is often stated in such a way as 
to confuse the mind and confound the 
reason. 

We only mystify ourselves by using, in 
this connection, the word “ Person.” Our 
-modern English word has certainly come to 
mean a separate individual. Now it is 
nonsense to say that there is one God and 
then to say that in the One God there are 
three Persons in the sense in which we 
ordinarily use that word. If there are three 
separate individualities, with three separate 
wills, and three separate centres of con- 
sciousness, then there are three Gods. But 
we know that there is but One living and 
true God. God is not Three in the same 
_sense in which He is One. ‘Therefore it is 
better for us to drop altogether, in this 


27 


The Power of the Spirit 


connection, the use of the word Person. 
It only confuses us. 


3. DiIsTINCTIONS IN THE GODHEAD. 


In Nature we see life becoming more and 
more wonderful in its ascent. At first it is 
simple in its being, but gradually becomes 
more complex, until we reach the marvel 
of man’s nature. In him there is a trinity 
of a kind, for we speak of him as having 
body, soul, and spirit. And yet this trinity 
is a unity. Should it surprise us, then, to 
know that in the Infinite and Eternal Being, 
the Source of all Life, there is a still pro- 
founder and richer complexity of nature 
which is made known to us under the names 
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and yet 
that this Being is One God? Instead of 
using the word ‘“‘ persons,” let us say that 
there are distinctions in the Godhead. 
There is a threefoldness in His Nature. The 
essence of God is Love. But if so, then, 
before the world was, before He summoned 
the Universe into being, and the morning 

28 


The Holy Spirit in the Trinity 


stars sang together, the Eternal Love must 
have had some object for His Love, and He 
found it within His own Being. ‘There was 
a mutual outgoing of Love between the 
Eternal Father and the Eternal Son, and 
the bond between them was the Eternal © 
Spirit. God is a Spirit. And we cannot 
think of the Holy Spirit of God as in any 
sense separate from that Spirit. “The 
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep 
things of God.” 

The Names of the Spirit point 1n the same 
Direction—He is called “The Spirit of 
God,” “The Spirit of the Father,” “The 
Spirit of the Son,” “ The Spirit of Christ,” 
thus indicating the essential unity between 
them. For we cannot separate between God 
and His Spirit, or between Christ and His 
Spirit. Nor is there any attempt to do soin 
Scripture. As Paul puts it, “ Now the Lord 
(and by the Lord he meant the Lord Jesus) 
1s that Spirit.” The Spirit of God is God 
in His essential nature, as He goes forth to 
dwell in the Eternal Son, and, through Him, 
in the sons of men. : 


29 


The Power of the Spirit 


4. A GROUND FOR THESE DISTINCTIONS IN 
THE BEING oF Gob. | 


God first manifested Himself as the 
Creator and Source of all things, the Father 
of men. Then He manifested Himself as 
the Redeeming Son, the Saviour. And, 
finally, He manifested Himself as the in- 
dwelling, regenerating, sanctifying Spirit, 
ever with us. ‘* Closer is He than breathing, 
and nearer than hands or feet.” And be- 
cause there were these three modes of mani- 
festation, it has been inferred that a ground 
for them must exist in the Being of God 
Himself, and that there is a threefoldness 
in God’s essential nature. And this is 
made known to us in Scripture. In the 
Fourth Gospel, for instance, Christ asserts 
His pre-existence. ‘‘ Before Abraham was, I 
am,” ‘Glorify thou Me with the glory 
which I had with thee, before the world was.” 
John tells us, “‘In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God.” ‘The 
Word was the medium of God’s Creation. 
* All things were made by Him.” In the 

30 


The Holy Spirit in the Trinity 


years of time, the Word became flesh, and 
tabernacled among men, and they beheld 
“the glory of the only-begotten of the 


Father.” Now here there is a distinction, — 


God, and God with God. The office of the 
latter is utterance, forthgoing, action. ‘Thus 
there is a duality in God. The unique 
nature and mission of Christ are thus traced 
to something in the being of Ged. But 
Christ and the Holy Spirit are so related, 
as we shall see, that both must be essentially 
within or essentially without the Godhead. 
God lives as the Father, God Original. He 
lives as God uttered, the Word. God going 
forth is related to God Original, as your 
word is to your mind. The third element 
is the unifying Spirit, the common life of 
the Father and the Eternal Word. If God 
creates, He will act as God going forth, and 
so all things come into being through the 
Word. If He enters into a race of created 
beings like ourselves in order to restore them 
‘to Himself, He will do so by His Spirit. 
Yet all such works of Word and Spirit are 
essentially works of God the Father, and 


, 31 


The Power of the Spirit 


neither. of them work apart from Him, nor 
are even to be thought of as separate from 
Him. They are ever one with Him. This 
conception of the Trinity avoids separating 
God into parts. Neither the Son nor the 
Spirit is a section of the Godhead. No one 
of the three has attributes that the others 
do not possess. The Father is Eternal 
Love. The Son is Eternal Love. The 
Spirit is Eternal Love. 

Such a conception of the Trinity in Unity 
does not confound the Reason. It suggests 
a wealth of being in God, a social element in 
the nature of God, which is more congenial 
to our thinking than the cold, remote unity 
suggested by Deism. And it is confirmed 
by the spiritual experience of the Church, 
and by the manner in which it fits in 
with the Grand Economy of Redemption 
revealed in the Gospel. Without such a 
threefoldness in God, the redemption of 
man would have been impossible. But 
when we conceive of there being such a 
distinction in the Being of God as has been 
suggested, we can at least dimly understand 


32 


The Holy Spirit in the Trinity 


how the Eternal Father gave His Son for 
the redemption of the world, how the Word 
became flesh and dwelt among us, how He 
bore our sins in His own body on the Tree, 
and how the Holy Spirit of God goes forth 
to dwell in man, to regenerate him, to 
enable him to make his own the redeeming 
work of the Saviour, so that it shall become 
effectual for him, and thus restore the 
broken fellowship between God and man. 
For God the Holy Spirit is God going forth 
to dwell in man, and make him once more a 
son of God. | 


33 


III 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN OUR LORD 
JESUS CHRIST 


‘The essence of the Christian religion lies in its 
realization of the truth that the union of the Human and 
the Divine is possible. It proclaims that God and man 
may have communion with one another. This fact is not 
a theory, or a speculation, but an experience that was 
perpetually exhibited in the soul of the Founder, and to 
which we are asked perpetually to look, and which can 
happen in the depth of every soul. This has to be 
believed before any great change can come over mankind 
or over the affairs of this world. Mankind must perforce 
realize that it 1s missing infinitely much for its own 
strength, freedom, and blessedness when it misses this 
message of the possibility of the union of the Human 
and the Divine, and of the possibility of the creation of 
ever-new spiritual qualities within the soul.””-—Dr. W. 
Tupor Jones. 


Iit 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN OUR LORD 
JESUS CHRIST? 


It would be impossible to emphasize too 
strongly the closeness of the connection 
both in Being and Work between the Holy 
Spirit and our Lord Jesus Christ. We have 
already tried to set forth His place in the 
Blessed ‘Trinity. We have seen something 
of His work in creation, and how He sought 
an ever fuller entrance into humanity. But 
it was not until Christ came, Himself a 
Child of the Spirit, that God could obtain 
the entrance He desired. The danger of 
any study of the Holy Spirit is that it is 
apt to become vague and transcendental. 


1 ScripTuRE REFERENCES.—Matt. i. 18, 20, iii. 11, iv. 1; Mark 
$118.5, Luke \i.' 35, 41-425" iil, 225. iv. 1-2, 14,18 > John a 
32-33, iil. 34, xiv. 16-18, xv. 26-27, xvi. 7-16; Acts i. 2, 5, 
x. 38; Rom. i. 3-4; 1 Cor. xii. 3, xv. 45; 2 Cor, iii. 17-18; 
Phil. i. 19; Heb. ix. 14; 1 John iv, 1-2, 


37 


The Power of the Spirit 


But Jesus Christ is true Man. And it will 
keep our subject human if we remember 
that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus 
Christ. So close is the connection that in 
Scripture they sometimes seem to be iden- 
tified. As when Jesus says that He will 
pray the Father to send the Spirit, and adds, 
“I will not leave you forlorn. I am coming 
to you.” But in other passages the dis- 
tinction is clearly made. “I will ask the 
Father to give you another Helper to be 
with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth.” 
He is given by the Father, yet sent by the 
Son. And He is to come to take the place 
of Christ, as His Substitute and Repre- 
sentative. So that when we think of the 
Holy Spirit, we shall do well to think of 
Him as the continued Presence of Christ. 
St. Paul did not hesitate to say, “ Now the 
Lord is that Spirit.” 

When we examine the teaching of Scrip- 
ture in regard to the various events in the 
life of our Lord, we see illustrated and 
confirmed in a remarkable manner the 
closeness of the union between Christ 


38 


The Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ 


and the Holy Spirit. He is Christ’s Alter 
Ego. | | 


1. THe Horny Spirir aND THE BirRTH OF 
CuristT. 


That we owe the Incarnation of the Son 
of God to the Holy Spirit is plainly taught 
in Scripture. The promise to Mary, the 
Mother of our Lord, was this, ‘‘ The. Holy 
Spirit will come upon you, the power of the 
Most High will overshadow you: thus, 
what is born will be called holy, the Son 
of God.” 

When we try to set forth in words what 
actually took place at the Incarnation, we 
are conscious that such a theme is dark with 
excess of light, and blinds our dim eyes. It 
may be that the Church has not yet been 
led into all the truth on this subject. It is 
more than doubtful whether we can rest 
satisfied with the decisions of past Councils 
in regard to the Person of Christ. They 
are all more or less dominated by the 
subtleties of Greek philosophy. It is diffi- 
cult, for instance, any longer to accept the 


39 


The Power of the Spirit 


teaching of two natures in One Person. As 
the personality is Divine, this theory in- 
volves the conception of an impersonal 
human nature. Jesus Christ was Divine, 
and had a Divine Nature. But if so, the 
human nature He had must have been im- 
personal, else there had been two Persons. 
But an impersonal human nature is meaning- 
less to us. For human nature includes 
mind, will, reason, affections. But how 
can these exist without personality? And 
any idea of two minds, or two wills, or a 
double consciousness is contrary to “ the 
simplicity which is in Christ.’ By no 
external combination of this sort can you 
define the One glorious Divine-human being 
portrayed in the Gospels, and shining in 
His beauty there. Nor could He ever thus 
be true Man, a real member of the human 
race, or the real head of it. The truth must 
be something simpler than this. 

In the Incarnation, we see God going out 
of Himself as Son to realize His life in human 
form. Only by thinking of the Incarnation 
as a process, by which God as Son realized 


40 


The Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ 


Himself in humanity, can we arrive at the 
truth. And in order that this might be 
accomplished, a long process of moral and 
spiritual development had to take place in 
that chosen race, whose glory it will ever be 
that the Spirit of God found there the most 
congenial sphere for His indwelling. The 
Spirit dwelt in this race ever more fully, as 
we have seen, down the long ages of Israel’s © 
history, lifting up the people gradually to 
a higher spiritual level, until in the fulness 
of time a pure Virgin was found capable of 
receiving His complete and perfect indwelling. 
This view has, at least, this advantage that 
it suggests that Mary had a moral and 
spiritual fitness for the unique honour con- 
ferred on her in being the Mother of our 
Lord, and that her selection was not purely 
arbitrary. So that Christ’s appearance in 
the flesh was the culmination of a long pro- 
cess. ‘The Incarnation was the crown of a 
gradual becoming of God in Man. And this 
process was accomplished by the Spirit, 
whose aim had ever been more fully to’ 
possess man. Previous to this, God was in 


41 


d 


The Power of the Spirit 


the world in an impersonal way. But the 
new element in Christianity was that in 
Christ God entered humanity in a personal 
form, and becomes its quickening Spirit. 
In Christ we see not so much a union of the 
human and the Divine, as a full expression 
of the Divine in the human; of God in 
Man. 

God, we know, works always through 
Law. All the sequences of Nature follow 
an orderly succession, and in a clearly linked 
chain of cause and effect. God’s method 
of working is by Evolution, by an unfolding 
of Creation through an immanent principle 
of Life. The Spirit of God was the primal 
cause of the material Creation, and He it 
was who set in motion the great process 
which culminated in the Word being made 
flesh. We see in this a new creative act of 
God through the Holy Spirit, in virtue of | 
which a Child enters the world without 
human paternity. The substance of His 
humanity was received from His Mother. 
But the vitalizing power which brought Him 
into being in human form came from the 


42 


The Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ 


Holy Spirit who imparted to Him the sinless 
image of God. The Christ is the Child of 
the Holy Spirit. He was the Eternal Son 
of God in virtue of His possession of the 
Eternal Spirit as the immanent principle 
of the life of God. This involved no abrupt 
breaking-in of the supernatural. At each 
stage in the upward march there is a fresh 
action of the Holy Spirit. This was so in 
the passing from the inorganic to the organic, 
when life appeared. It was so when the first 
man was born, made in the image of God. 
And it is because there is in man this kinship 
with God, this capacity to become one with 
God, that it was possible for God to become 
Man. And it was so now when at last a Man 
appears, who is wholly after the Spirit, the 
Son of God. Now the Divine Life is fully 
tealized in Man. It was a new entrance of 
God as Son into humanity. ‘‘ No form of 
doctrine which supposes an entrance of the 
Son of God into this world, as from without, 
canever give us both God and Manin Christ, 
with no loss either to His Deity or to His 
Humanity.” The spiritual element in the 


43 


The Power of the Spirit 


world isone. It is Godin Man. It is God 
the Holy Spirit ever seeking to dwell in man. 
And when, in the fulness of time, this was 
possible in its perfection, the Incarnation 
took place. In Christ, humanity is one with 
God, and to be a Son of God, indwelt by 
God, is the ideal of every man. 


2. Tue Hory Spirit anp THE Baptism. 


Jesus was baptized with the Holy Spirit. 
“The Holy Spirit descended in bodily form 
like a dove upon Him; and a voice came 
from heaven, ‘Thou art My Son, the 
beloved, in Thee I am well pleased.’ ” 
This is not the place to speak of the thirty 
years of privacy and obscurity in Nazareth. 
His development was truly human, for “ He 
increased in wisdom, and in stature, and in 
favour with God and man.” But at last 
the hour arrived for Him to take up His real 
life-work as the Messiah and Saviour of men. 
It is not easy to understand why this Child 
of the Spirit needed a fresh baptism of the 
Spirit. But at least we can see that He had 


at 


The Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ 


to be equipped for His mission, and to be 
endowed with powers needed for His special 
work. ‘These powers were not given till 


they were required. He needed not to be ~ 


born again, for from the beginning of His 
earthly life He was born of God. But now 
He had to be anointed for His work as 
Prophet, Priest, and King. At His baptism, 
He passed through an experience analogous 
to what the disciples passed through at 
Pentecost, when they were equipped with 
the powers they needed for the task which 
confrontedthem. His baptism was a marked 
stage in His development. It seems to 
have been the occasion when He received 
His miraculous powers, for up to this time, 
so far as we know, He had wrought no 
miracle; but immediately after this, His 
mighty works began. We may not fathom 
what His consciousness had been as He grew 
up at Nazareth, or when it began to dawn 
upon Him who He was, but may we not 
venture to say that now at His baptism He 
came into the full consciousness of His 
unique relation to the Father, and of the 


45 


The Power of the Spirit 


unique mission entrusted to Him? And it 
should give us pause when we see that even 
the Holy One had to be equipped by the 
Holy Spirit ere He went forth to fulfil His 
task. How much more then do we need this 
baptism of the Spirit ere we venture upon 
our work for God ? : 


3. Tue Hoty Spirit anp tHe Temprarion, 


Following the Baptism came the Tempta- 
tion, and here also we see the Holy Spirit 
at work, “From the Jordan Jesus came 
back full of the Holy Spirit, and for forty 
days He was led by the Spirit in the desert, 
while the Devil tempted Him.” St. Mark 
puts the matter still more strongly. “Then 
the Spirit drove Him immediately into the 
desert,” that wild, rocky country between 
Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, which one 
sees on the left hand on the way down to 
Jericho. God is in eternal antagonism to 
evil, When He conferred on man the awful 
power of free will, He gave him the power 
to choose between Good and Evil, and man, 


46 


4 


The Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ 


to the grief of the Eternal Love, chose evil, 
to his own undoing and misery. But now 
at last God has found a Champion in a Man 
fully possessed by the Spirit, and perfectly 
equipped for the contest. 
*¢O loving wisdom of our God 
When all was sin and shame, 
A second Adam to the fight 


And to the rescue came. 


O wisest love! that flesh and blood 
Which did in Adam fail 

Should strive afresh against the foe, 
Should strive and should prevail.” 


The. conflict was fierce, but the victory 
was complete. The enemy of souls came, 
and found nothing responsive to evil in 
Christ. And though the attack was con- 
stantly renewed, the issue was ever the same. 
So that Jesus could issue the immortal 
challenge, ‘“‘ Which of you convinceth Me 
of sin?” And in His victory, ours, through 
the same Holy Spirit, is presaged and 


assured. 


47 


The Power of the Spirit 


4. Tue Hory Spirit anp THE Ministry 
OF JESUS 


After the Temptation, it is written, 
“‘’Then Jesus came back in the power of the 
Spirit to Galilee.” ‘In the power of the 
Spirit,” that was the keynote of all His 
ministry, and in that power it was all ful- 
filled. The Spirit abode upon Him. This 
was the beginning of the permanent indwell- 
ing in man of the Spirit of God, which 
yet shall be realized in all men. What an 
inward reinforcement this was to Jesus may 
be inferred from these words used of Him 
on one occasion, “ He, thrilled with joy in 
the Holy Spirit, said...’ That was 
always the source of His joy and strength. 
Here was His secret fount of power and 
victory. We are plainly told that His 
miraculous deeds were done in the power of 
the Spirit. ‘And if I, by the Spirit, cast, 
out devils...” But all His teaching was 
similarly explained. ‘‘ He whom God has 
sent utters the words of God; God gives 
Him the Spirit in no sparing measure.” 


48 


The Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ 


One of the most marvellous features in the 
ministry of this Child of the Spirit, to whom 
the Spirit had been given in no sparing 
measure, is that even He needed to have 
His powers replenished by long seasons of 
communion with God. Hence the nights 
spent thus on the mountain-top. Surely 
here there is a deep lesson for all God’s 
people. They have the Spirit. They 
may even have been “filled with the 
Spirit.” But if Christ needed to be) re: 
plenished by fellowship with the Eternal, 
how much more do we? No wonder that 
when Jesus began to teach, men recognized 
that they were listening to the voice of God, 
and said, ‘This is new teaching with 
authority behind it.” It was the authority 
of the Holy Spirit of God which men recog- 
nized. And Jesus explained it when He 
said, ‘‘ The words I have spoken are not 
Mine but His that sent Me,” “I have 
given them Thy words,” “ ‘The words I have 
uttered to you are Spirit and life.” The 
whole ministry is admirably described by 
St. Peter when he said, ‘“‘ God anointed 


a 


The Power of the Spirit 


Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power, 
who went about doing good.” He was able 
to go about doing good, because He had 
been anointed with the Holy Spirit and with 
power. Here is summed up in these simple 
words the whole Christian life, and the true 
secret of it. If we would follow in the 
Master’s steps, we must be anointed with 


the Holy Spirit, as He was. 


5. Tue Hory Spirit anpD THE DeaTH OF 
CurRIST 


The ministry was crowned in His death. 
The death of Christ was not inevitable, 
as the death of most other men is. 
It was voluntary. “No man taketh My 
life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” 
It was the final achievement of His earthly 
life. ‘This is not the place to enter into a 
full discussion of this momentous theme, 
which has so many aspects. The point to 
notice here is that it also was accomplished 
“in the power of the Spirit.” It is true 
_ that the verse in the Epistle to the Hebrews 


50 


- 


The Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ 


which refers to this is a difficult one, and: 
its correct rendering somewhat uncertain. 
The Authorized Version is, ‘‘ How much more 
shall the blood of Christ, who through the 
Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot 
to God, purge your conscience from dead 
works to serve the living God?” The 
Revised Version maintains the reference to 
the Holy Spirit, “‘ who through the Eternal 
Spirit offered Himself without blemish to 
God.” Dr. Weymouth, in his translation, 
is even more explicit, “‘ who, strengthened 
by the Eternal Spirit offered Himself to 
God.” Dr. Dale considers that the point 
here emphasized is, that the voluntary 
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ was a 
Divine act. He assumed the nature of man, 
but even in His humiliation He was God 
still. It was God who made Himself of no 
reputation, and became obedient to death, 
even the death of the Cross. It was through 
the Eternal Spirit, the Divine personality and 
will which constituted the very centre and 
root of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, that 
He endured the Cross, despising the shame. 


51 


¢ 


The Power of the Spirit 


6. Jesus Curist Baptizes wiTH THE HoLy 
SPIRIT. 


Said the Baptist in anticipation, ‘I 
indeed baptize you with water, He shall 
baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Said 
St. Peter, “‘ This Jesus God raised, as we all 
can bear witness. Uplifted, then, by God’s 
right hand, and receiving from the Father 
the long-promised Holy Spirit, He has 
poured on us what ye now see and hear.” 
The thought should ever be before our 
minds, “Christ gives the Spirit. Christ 
baptizes with the Spirit.” With what holy 
boldness may we go to Christ and ask Him 
to impart to us His own gift? He knows 
the greatness of our need. And the whole 
end and purpose of His mission is that we 
might receive this gift, and have God 
dwelling within us. For He knows that only 
thus can we obtain the dominion over sin. 


§2 


The Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ 


7. Finatty, THe Hory Spirir coMPLETES 
THE Work oF CuristT. 


The Holy Spirit came in the fulness 
_ of His power at Pentecost to take Christ’s 
place in the Church. Christ, hitherto, 
had been their Helper. Now here is that 
other Helper whom He had promised — 
to send. And His work is “to take of 
the things that are Christ’s and show 
them unto us.” The Spirit is not to speak 
of Himself, but of Christ. And so Christ 
said, “ He shall glorify Me.” And this the 
Holy Spirit delights to do. Any spirit that 
does not glorify Christ is not the Holy 
Spirit. It is He who makes us feel our 
need of Christ, by convincing us of our sin, 
and awakening within us a divine discontent. 
It is the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes to 
the beauty and all-sufficiency of Christ, as 
meeting our need. It is the Spirit who 
quickens the soul into newness of life, and 
enables us to apprehend Christ. It is the 
Spirit who grafts us into Christ, as branches 
into the True Vine. It is through the 


53 


The Power of the Spirit 


Spirit that Christ becomes “ Christ in us.” 
It is He who makes Christ to be to us 
“wisdom, and righteousness, and sancti- 
fication, and redemption.” ‘The Spirit is 
the Spirit of Christ ; Christ is the fountain, 
and the Spirit the fertilizing stream. It is 
He who uplifts the sweet glory of Christ 
before the aching eyes of the contrite, and 
applies the soft balm of Christ to the 
wounds which sin has made. The Spirit 
manifests to the soul Christ as He is, and 
then the soul embraces Christ with joy. 
The Spirit gives faith by providing the facts 
on which faith can work. Then the soul 
sees, trusts, appropriates the manifested 
Christ, and thus believing has life through 
His Name. 


54 


PEN TECOST : THE HOLY SPIRIT 
IN: THE CHU RCH 


a oe « The ‘one thing 1 ‘ | 
ae es our day is to- be filled with: the . Spi.” Asa 
| Murray. | Roe | 


IV 


PENTECOST: THE HOLY SPIRIT IN 
’ THE CHURCE * 


““Wuen the day of Pentecost was fully 
come” (24th May a.p. 33), a new era in 
the world began, a new stage in the great 
process of redemption was reached, in which 
the Holy Spirit of God gained a fuller en- 
trance into humanity than before. And 
yet how unheeding the great, busy world 
was of what was happening, even as it had 
been at the Incarnation, when Jesus Christ. 
was born. When the Lord Jesus on the 
last day—that great day of the feast—had 


1 Scriprure Rererences.—John xiv, 25-26, xx. 223 Acts i, 8, 
ii. 3-4, 17-18, 38, 41, iv. 8, 31, Vv. 3, 32, Vi. 3, 7-8, viii. 14-18, 
29, 39) 1X. 17, 31, X- 19, 44-48, xi. 12, 15, 28, xiii; 2, 52, 
XV, 8-9, 28, xvi. 6-8, xix.2, 6, xx. 22, °28, xxi, 4, 1% 5 
4 Cor. xii.’ 7-11, 13, xiv. 1-2,°§3,2 Cor. xi. 4; Eph, iii. 
5, iv. 3-4; Phil. ii. 1; 1 Tim. iv. 143 2 Tim. iii. 16-19; 
Heb, iii..7, x. 15; 1 Pet. i 10-11; 2 Pet, i, 213 1 John v, 7; 
Rev. i. 10, ii. 7, iii. 1, iv. 2, xiv. 13, xix. 10, xxii. 17. 


57 


The Power of ‘ie Spirit 


stood and cried, saying, “‘ If any man thirst, 
let him come unto Me and drink. He who 
believes in Me, out of his body, as Scripture 
says, streams of living water will flow,” 
John’s comment in recording this is, “Thus 
spake He of the Spirit which those who 
believed in Him were to receive; as yet 
there was no Holy Spirit, because Jesus had 
not yet been glorified.” 


1. [HE RESERVE OF THE SPIRIT BEFORE 
PENTECOST. 


What he probably meant was that in 
comparison with the wonderful manifesta- 
tions of the presence and power of the Spirit 
from Pentecost onwards, to which, after 
fifty years of experience, he could look back, 
it seemed as if before that the Holy Spirit 
had not been. ‘There had been such com- 
parative reserve in His manifestations. Yet 
He had been the Creator of all things, and, 
during the millenniums, He had _ been 
entering ever more fully into the world in 
the living creatures, and in man. He had 


58 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


been operating in every soul, in every land, 
in every veligion; the good man every- 
where has ever been God’s workmanship 


through the Spirit; but especially in Israel’s 


history, in King, in Prophet, in Psalmist. 
Then came the supreme event of the In- 
carnation, when a Man appeared who was the 
Child of the Spirit, and who lived His whole 
life possessed, controlled, dominated by 
the Spirit. The Spirit had been at work 
also in the hearts of His disciples, revealing 
Christ more fully to them, regenerating 
them, uniting them to Him in faith and 
love. After His Resurrection, He had 
breathed on them, and said, ‘‘ Receive ye 
the Holy Spirit.” Still, there had been a 
marked reserve in the giving and in the work 
of the Holy Spirit before Pentecost, and that 
for several reasons. First, because the Holy 
Spirit of God needed to be revealed by 
Christ. In His incarnate life He gave 
visibility to the Spirit’s qualities. He is the ~ 
-perfect example of the Spirit-filled man, 
shown in complete obedience, all-embracing 
“love, filial assurance, courage, hope, whole- 


59 


The Power of the Spirit 


hearted sacrifice. Till men had seen all 
this, their notions of the Spirit must have 
been vague. But when they saw the Spirit- 
filled man, they began to long for this noble 
and excellent possession. Second, because 
the Cross was the supreme manifestation of 
the Divine Love, through which the Spirit 
was to take possession of the hearts of be- 
lievers. It was the crowning act of Christ’s 
life-work. And until that had taken place, 
He could neither be witnessed to nor 
understood in the completeness of His 
character as the Redeemer of men. Neither 
was it possible for the Divine Spirit to take 
of the things that are Christ’s, and to show 
them unto men, until the most glorious 
thing that Christ had come to do for men 
had been accomplished on the Cross. The - 
Spirit could not unfold the meaning of that 
act, until the great act itself had been com- 
pleted. The Spirit is none other than the 
Spirit of Christ, the sum and source of all 
the influence proceeding from His life, His 
death, and His resurrection from the dead. 
Therefore the Spirit could not be fully 
60 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


given, while Jesus was not yet glorified. 
Third, because the Spirit in His fulness 
could only be communicated to men by 
One who had redeemed them, and who, 
having tasted death for them, has been 
raised to absolute dominion. The coming 
of the Holy Spirit was the sign that the 
great Propitiation for sin had been accepted, 
and that the Redeemer of men had been 
exalted to the Throne of God. Pentecost 
was won for us on Calvary. And the coming 
of the Spirit then was the token that Christ 
had secured new and glorious privileges for 
men by which they might be made partakers 
of the Divine nature. At Pentecost a new 
stage was reached in that great process, 
which it is one of the objects of these lectures 
to unfold, by which the Spirit of God enters 
into an ever deeper and fuller union with 
the spirit of man. At the Incarnation, God 
came by His Son to dwell with man. At 
Pentecost, He came by His Spirit to take up 
His abode zm man, and so to lift him up into 
abiding fellowship-with Himself. 


61 


The Power of the Spirit 


2. THe Boox or THe Acts oF THE Hoty 
SPIRIT. 


As the Gospels unfold the ministry of 
Christ in the flesh, the Book of the Acts 
unfolds His ministry in the Spirit. The 
Acts of the Apostles might well be called 
the acts of the Holy Spirit. And _ this 
ministry was inaugurated at Pentecost. 
What took place then is memorable in the 
history of the Church and of humanity. 
There was a vast concourse of Jews in 
Jerusalem from all parts of the Empire to 
celebrate their great harvest festival. ‘The 
disciples of Jesus spent their time together 
in united prayer, their whole being intent 
on one thing. They were a little company, 
feeble, uninfluential, utterly unable in their 
own strength to fulfil the solemn ministry 
entrusted to them of making Jesus known as 
the Saviour of men. So they were waiting 
for their equipment. They were tarrying 
in Jerusalem until they were endued with 
the Power from on high. They did not 
dare to enter on their task until they had 

62 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


received the needed power. Observe the 
Spirit was not given to men individually 


and separately. He was given to this little, .. 
company of believing men and women’ * 


assembled as the Church of Christ, in unity 
of Spirit, and engaged in earnest prayer for 
this one gift. The Spirit came in answer 
to believing prayer, and it is always thus 
He comes. And not till a reunited Church 
seeks the lost Power she needs, and combines 
in earnest, believing prayer, shall she recover 
it. Perhaps the day is drawing near when 
the Church shall be driven into union, and 
to her knees by her very impotence in face 
of the awful world problems which now 
confront her. 

That the Church of to-day has not the 
power she requires is painfully clear to her 
own members, and to’ those who are outside 
her borders. ‘This is evidenced by the com- 
parative fewness of those who come forward 
year by year to confess their faith in Christ. 
There is, in fact, a decreasing membership 
in all the churches. The habit of church- 
going is steadily waning. ‘The numbers in- 


63 


The Power of the Spirit 


crease of those who say they have no need 
of the Church, to whom its existence is 
quite negligible. Multitudes of men do not 
hate the Church. They simply regard it 
as of no account, which is almost worse. 
It was stated by a Committee among the 
Chaplains specially appointed to inquire 
into the matter, that not more than 30 per 
cent. of the men in the new armies had 
‘any connection whatever with any Church. 
When the-Church gets into grips with the 
Drink Traffic, the latter wins every time, 
though the great victory in America and 
Canada bids us hope. The horrible scandal 
of the slums is a monument to the inertia 
of the Church. The Commission on Ven- 
ereal Diseases tells us that 10 per cent. of 
the civil population are suffering from this 
fell plague. Its ravages in the Army need 
nocomment. A section of Labour does not 
hesitate to threaten bloody revolution, and 
is in love with what has happened in Russia. 
And the War has emphasized the power- 
lessness of the Church. By reason of her 
divisions she can speak with no authoritative 


64 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


voice. Had she been united, and filled with 
the Spirit, there would have been no war, 
for the causes that led up to the War would ~ 
have been rendered impossible. And who 
looks to the Church to secure peace? ‘The 
Pope’s appeal, in which the great moral 
issues at stake were ignored, and the crimes 
of Germany were condoned, was without 
moral passion, and so it failed. When the 
Reformed Churches met in the great Mis- 
sionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1g10, 
to consider the mighty work they had 
been called to undertake in the evangeliza- 
tion of the world, the following were some 
of their conclusions: ‘‘ The fundamental 
difficulty is not one of men or money, but 
of Spiritual power. The only hope of the 
Church being able to meet the opportunity 
is that there should be a new vitalizing of 
the whole Church.” ‘If our missionaries 
are to be fitly and tully prepared ‘ to con- 
vince the world,’ they must go forth from 
a Church in which the Spirit of Christ is 
evidently at work, in whose whole policy, 
and character, and life, the Gospel is con- 


65 


The Power of the Spirit 


tinuously and irrefutably proved to be in 
very truth the Power of God unto salvation.” 
But these requirements are not fulfilled. 
The Church is not Spirit-filled. Without. 
the Power from on High the work cannot 
be done. And so the great and noble pro- 
gramme for winning the world to Christ 
remains still only a programme. Clearly 
there is something seriously wrong with the 
Church. She progresses neither at home 
nor throughout the world as she ought to do 
if her Gospel be true, and her mission divine. 
What is wanting? The Church needs the 
baptism of the Spirit to-day as urgently as 
the Primitive Church needed it, when they 
waited on their knees for the’ promised 
power, and it came. It is very solemn to 
think that there is a Power adequate to meet 
the tremendous responsibilities of the Church 
which is largely unused. A distinguished 
scientist said recently that ‘‘ every cubic 
inch of the ether of space is full of the most 
portentous possibilities. It is full of an 
energy beside which the sporadic energy of 
material bodies shrinks into insignificance. 


66 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


I have reckoned that every cubic millimetre | 


horse-power station working day and night 
for thirty thousand years. But how to get 
at it—neither I nor anyone at present has 
the slightest idea. But once that is dis- 
covered, every other source of energy will 
sink into insignificance, for the store is 
omnipresent and absolutely exhaustless.”’ 
When will the Church learn to get at the 
omnipresent, inexhaustible storehouse of 
spiritual power which is at her disposal 
now in the Omnipotent Holy Spirit of God? 
When that Power is free to work, how 
wonderful are the results! I remember, 
when I was called to be minister of Coler- 
aine, I went to tell my old clergyman, Dr. 
Moody Stuart, about it. I did not think 
that the old gentleman would know anything 
of this place in Ireland, but the moment I 
mentioned the name, he startled me by 
saying, “‘ If I were a young man I should like 
to be a minister in Coleraine.” I asked, 
“Why?” His answer was striking, ** Because 


67 


The Power of the Spirit 


there the people once saw the mighty Power of 
God.”? ‘Then he read to me extracts from 
his diary recording the amazing scenes he 
had witnessed there during the great revival 
of 1859, when the whole life of the place was 
shaken to its foundations. And when | 
went there, I found that many of the best 
Christians were the abiding fruit of this 
work of the Spirit. | 


ass Tue Day or PENTECOST—THE SPIRIT 
GIVEN TO ALL. 


What happened on the Day of Pentecost ? 
“ Suddenly there came a sound from heaven 
like a violent blast of wind, which filled the 
whole house where they were seated. They 
saw tongues like flames distributing them- 
selves, one resting on the head of each, and 
they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” 
It was not a wind. It was like a wind. An 
irresistible power of a Spiritual nature came 
upon them, like the wind impalpable and 
unseen, but felt. Flames were not seen, — 
but tongues like flames, symbolic of the 

68 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


cleansing, purifying influence of the Spirit, 
burning up the dross in the human soul, 
symbolic also of the power they needed to 
speak for Jesus Christ. It was given to — 
each separately, but only to each separately : 
when all were together. The Spirit in His 
fulness did not come to any stray disciple 
who had separated himself from the corporate 
body of the Church. But those who were 
assembled together as the Church of Christ 
were all filled with the Holy Spirit. The 
gift came not to the Apostles only, but to 
all the members. The gift came to women 
as well as to men. It was not confined to 
any priestly class, or ordained clergy. It 
was bestowed on every member of the 
Church. Every Church member was en- 
dowed with the Power to be a witness to 
Christ, and the women as well as the men. 
How grievously the Church has forgotten 
the evident lessons of Pentecost! In vain 
has she rested on ministerial succession, on 
organization, on education, on ritual, on the 
power of the State. She has largely confined 
the task of witnessing to Christ to the clergy 


69 


The Power of the Spirit 


} . 
who are supposed to be paid to do so, and 
in the churches she has silenced the voices 
of holy women. The policy of the Church 
has been too like the hesitating jealousy of 
Joshua, who, when Eldad and Medad, having 
received the gift of the Holy Spirit in the 
olden time, began to prophesy, said to 
Moses, “My lord Moses forbid them.” 
Surely we must return to the generous 
spirit of Moses, who replied, “‘ Would God 
that all the Lord’s people were prophets, 
and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon 
them!” Here, indeed, Moses anticipated 
Pentecost. We must cease leaving the task 
of witnessing for Christ to any caste in the 
Church. We must no longer put any bar 
upon Christian women, who have received 
the endowment of the Spirit, from using 
their gift for the glory of God, and the 
salvation of sinners. The gift bestowed on 
all on the Day of Pentecost was not a re- 

__~ generating gift. These men and women 
“were already regenerate. But now very 
definitely they received the power needed 
_> for effective service. And that power all 


7O 


S 
‘e 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


who would work for Christ to-day need even 
as they. 
And let it never be forgotten that THE 


SPIRIT WAS GIVEN TO THE CORPORATE CHURCH. | 


—Men are asking to-day, Is there any need 
for an organized Church at all? They are 
telling us that religion is a matter between 
the individual soul and God. If men had 
felt that through the Church the Spirit of 
God was being imparted to them for their 
regeneration and spiritual uplift, such a 
question would never have been raised. 
Those who have received the grace of God 
through the ministry of the Church, honour 
and value the Church. Christ in His 
wisdom founded the Church when He 
chose His twelve Apostles, and trained them 
that they might teach others, and gave them 
the Holy Sacrament to be the bond binding 
them together in a League of Love. He saw 
that true religion, if it were to spread over 
the world, must have a Society formed for. 
the express purpose of its propagation. So 
when a man is united to Christ, he becomes 
a member of Christ’s Body. He has an 


7% 


The Power of the Spirit 


individual life. But he has also a corporate 
life, as a member of the Body, which entails 
special privileges and responsibilities. His 
own soul is enriched thereby, and he helps 
to enrich others. And so the Spirit was 
given to the Church, but only that through 
the Church He might be given to the world. 


4. THe Practica, Usz oF THE GIFT. 


The Church having received this most 
precious gift from God immediately pro- 
ceeded to use it for the benefit of the world. 
The disciples went forth from the upper 
room, and began to witness for Christ. And 
with what result ? St. Luke records that after 
Peter’s sermon “* about three thousand souls 
were brought in that day.” “Also day by 
day, the Lord added to their number those 
whom He was saving.” ‘A number of 
those who heard them speak believed, 
bringing up their numbers to about five 
thousand.” “ ‘The Apostles gave their testi- 
mony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus 
with great power, and great grace was upon 


72 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


them all.” ‘And the Word of the Lord 
spread; the number of the disciples in 
Jerusalem greatly increased, and a host of 
priests became obedient to the faith.” 
** Now those who had to scatter (owing to 
the persecution) went everywhere preaching 
the Gospel.” ‘“* Now all over Judea, Galilee, 
and Samaria, the Church enjoyed peace; 
it was consolidated, inspired by reverence 
for the Lord, and by its invocation of the — 
Holy Spirit, and so increased in numbers.” 
Paul and Silas in Iconium “so spake that a 
great multitude both of the Jews and also 
of the Greeks believed.” ‘“* And they went 
forth and preached everywhere, the Lord 
working with them, and Cana ane the 
word with signs following.” Such success 
attended the labours of the oe filled 
Church. 

¢ Intruth the Church was.born ina Revival | 
Some people to-day look askance at revivals, 
and are suspicious of sudden conversions. 
But the Church owes its existence to a 
revival, and all these first conversions were 
sudden. Some look with disfavour on re- 


73 


The Power of the Spirit 


vivals partly because they are connected in 


__) their minds with a particular type of religion 
‘\ represented by the American Evangelist, 


and his peculiar methods. “They are identi- 
fied with halls, and harmoniums, and catchy 
hymns, and after-meetings, and hortatory 
appeals to stand up and confess Christ, 
accompanied by the announcement in the 
tones of a, Spiritual Auctioneer of the 
numbers saved. But revivals of religion are 
not all of that type. ‘There were revivals 
in the Old Testament Church under Samuel, 
David, Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Heze- 
kiah, Josiah, and Ezra. While not limited 
to Christianity (for other religions have 
their waves of religious emotion) they are 
supremely characteristic of it. Periodicity. 
seems to be a law of the Kingdom of God. 
Such events are a witness to the world of 
the permanence of spiritual realities, and of 
the working of the Spirit of God in human 
history. ‘There are revivals in literature and 
art; witness the great movement of the Re- 
naissance. There are also revivals inthe world 
of trade and commerce. The nineteenth 


74 


i 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


century is memorable for a great revival of 
Science. And so there are periodic revivals 
of Religion. And this fact reminds us that 
the great gift of the Spirit at Pentecost has 
never been withdrawn. He is working 
mightily in our world to-day. But there is 
-an ebb and flow in His working. And he 
works in different ways at different times. 
There was a great revival of Religion in 
Italy in the twelfth century, yet it would 
be hard to imagine a figure more alien 
to Mr. D. L. Moody than Francis of 
Assissi. ‘There was a great revival at the 
time of the Reformation in the sixteenth 
century, and under Wesley in the eighteenth 
century, and in the North of Ireland in the 
nineteenth century. But how very varied 
were the instruments employed, the means 
used, and the type of truth which came home 
to human hearts, and the fruits of the Spirit 
which appeared. Looking back, it would 
seem that a time of spiritual revival usually 
has come after a time of spiritual deadness. 
But such barren seasons have their limits, 
and are succeeded by a glorious spring-time 


e5 


‘The Power of the Spirit 


of joy, and light, and beauty, and fruitfulness. 
Generally speaking, the new forces set in- 
motion radiate forth from one man who is 
the prophet of his generation. And when a 
revival begins, it spreads like a contagion. 
Usually there is a deep and poignant sense 
of sin, such as was seen recently by the 
missionaries in Manchuria, followed by a 
wonderful outburst of joy and _ gladness, 
which expresses itself in praise, as souls 
leaped out into the glorious liberty of the 
children of God. But God does not repeat 
Himself. ‘The Holy Spirit works in diverse 
ways suited to the needs of each particular 
time. To-day a Revival seems due. The 
Church has largely lost its ancient power. 
‘We want a Revival which will weld together 
the divided Church in a spiritual unity in 
Christ. Then the One Church shall speak 
with authority in the Councils of Christen- 
dom. We want a Revival which will affect 
politics, and commerce, and social life. We 
want a Religion, concerned indeed to save 
the individual soul, but more concerned to 
save, through the multitude of saved souls, 
76 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


the State and the world. Revivals have 
always been preceded by the Spirit of prayer, 
arising out of a deep sense of need. The 


Church to-day should be driven to its knees, 


for its impotence is great, and a distracted 
world sorely needs a season of refreshing from 
the presence of the Highest, 


V 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH 
(continued) 


‘Now was I come up in Spirit through the flaming 
sword, into the paradise of God.” 

«The earthly spirit of the priests wounded my life.’ 

‘At another time, as I was walking im a field on a 
first day morning, the Lord opened unto me that being 
bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit and 
qualify men to be ministers of Christ.” 

‘¢ That which I was moved to declare was this—that 
the Holy Scriptures were given forth by the Spirit of 
God, and all people must first come to the Spirit of God 
in themselves, by which they might know God and 
Christ, of whom the apostles and prophets learnt, and by 
the same Spirit know the Holy Scriptures: for as the 
Spirit of God was in them that gave forth the Scriptures, 
so the same Spirit of God must be in all them that would 
understand the Scriptures; by which Spirit they might 
have fellowship with the Son, and with the Father, and 
with the Scriptures, and with one another; and without 
this Spirit they can know neither God nor Christ, nor 
the Scriptures, nor have right fellowship one with 
-another.’’—-Extracts FROM THE JouRNAL oF GrorcE Fox. 


80 


V 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH 


(continued) 


Tose good men amongst us who are looking 
and praying for “‘ another Pentecost ” seem 
to labour under some confusion of thought. 
Pentecost needs no repetition. The Holy 
Spirit once given by an ascended Lord has 
never been withdrawn. He is now in the 
Church. What is true is that His gracious 
operations are impeded, thwarted, hampered 
by her divisions, and her connivance at sin 
within her own border. What is needed 
is that the Church, by lowly penitence, 
should put away her sin, so that the Holy 
Spirit may have free course and be glorified. 
All round the coast there are buoys, on 
which are affixed lights which burn a specially 
prepared gas. The-greatest storms will not 
put out these lights, though the waves be 
81 


The Power of the Spirit 


washing over them. But a little speck of 
dust in one of the valves will. So sin in the 
Church prevents the Holy Spirit from work- 
ing as He longs to do. How the Church 
has grieved the Holy Spirit by her sin! As 
St. James says, ‘‘ The Spirit which He has 
caused to dwell in our hearts yearns jealously 
over us!” ‘The Holy Spirit would have the 
Bride of Christ to be holy. He is jealous of 
her because she has defiled herself by sin. 
And because of this He cannot work through 
her as He longs to do. 


1. THE CuurcH MUST BE Pure. 


The testimony of history proves conclus- 
ively that though the Spirit has never been 
withdrawn from the Church, yet the 
Church by her unfaithfulness may make it 
impossible for the Spirit to use her. ‘The 
Holy Spirit is in the Church, and in 
that branch, of it which acknowledges 
the Pope as its head. But sin in the 
Church silences the voice of the Spirit, 
and has rendered her Councils on many 

82 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


occasions the voice of error and false-_ 
hood. Some of her Popes and Bishops have 
been morally leprous, and have come down 
through history as incarnations of monstrous 
wickedness. Her world became full of limit- 
less ambition and nefarious intrigue, till a 
large part of Christendom became weary of 
her, and flung off her authority. But sin 
has also quenched the light of the Spirit in 
the Reformed Churches, and in them there 
have been dark periods of spiritual dulness 
and impotence. 

The Church of the early days realized 
the deadly danger to her life when Ananias 
and Sapphira, shortly after Pentecost, com- 
mitted their sin. And the awful severity 
of its disciplinary punishment was an in- 


_ dication of the menace to the Church when 


it harbours or condones sin. And their sin 
was a sin against the Holy Spirit. They lied 
to the Holy Spirit. What was their sin? 
It was not one of the sins of the flesh. It 
was a sin of covetousness and of insincerity. 
And the Apostles felt that were such sins to 
be tolerated, they would render the Church 
83 


The Power of the Spirit 


unholy, and destroy the work of the Holy 
Spirit. Hence the appalling nature of the 
punishment. The Church has always pro- 
fessed the endeavour to keep herself pure. 
She has never abandoned the practice of 
enforcing discipline. Yet discipline even 
among the Reformed Churches is almost 
completely in abeyance. And this is one 
of the reasons why the Holy Spirit cannot 
use her. She is not holy. Where there is 
discipline, it has been too much narrowed 
down to dealing with the sins of the flesh, 
impurity and drunkenness. ‘This has been 
a deplorable error on the part of the Church. 
While condemning these two sins, she has 
condoned others quite as great as they. 
How has the modern Church dealt with the 
sin of covetousness ? For instance, drunken- 
ness is to a large extent the result of the 
pestilential dwellings in which masses of the 
poor are condemned to live, and these exist 
because the slum landlord is in haste to be 
rich, and cares neither for the souls nor for — 
the bodies of men. But what Church has 
dared to discipline a slum landlord? Men 


84 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


at the head of rich firms making large profits 
pay their work-girls three shillings, five 


shillings, and seven shillings and sixpence per 


week, and lay terrible temptations in their 
path, but then perhaps they give largely to 
Missions, and therefore are honoured, and not 
disciplined by the Church as they ought to 
be. Meanwhile the sons of labour are largely 
hostile to the Church because they know 
these things, and who can wonder at it? 
The Church must widen her idea of sin. To 
condone sins such as these silences the voice 
of the Spirit in the Church, and renders 
her impotent as an instrument for securing 
social righteousness. Yet in His mercy 
the Holy Spirit has not wholly withdrawn 
from the Church. He is still in the midst 
of her, waiting to work mightily as in the - 
early days through her, when she has put 
away her sin. When will she arise, and 
cleanse herself and put on her beautiful 
garments, and stand forth as the Champion 
for God, “ clear as the sun, fair as the moon, 
and terrible as an army with banners” ? 


85 


The Power of the Spirit 


2. Tue Hoty Sprrir AND THE DEVELOP- 
MENT OF THE CHURCH. 


It is interesting to see how close is the 
connection between the Holy Spirit and 
every step in the development of the infant 
Church. It was the Holy Spirit who used 
_ the words of St. Peter to the conversion of 
3000 souls. When a man speaks “in the 
power of the Spirit,’ how effective an 
instrument he becomes in God’s hands! I 
remember taking part in a Mission in which 
some noted Evangelists gave help. ‘Their 
addresses were able and eloquent. But the 
‘people were not seriously moved. Then 
there came among us a minister, neither 
eloquent nor brilliant, but he was filled with 
the Spirit. He spoke in the power of the 
Spirit to the consciences of the people. 
And the Spirit used him mightily. As he 
drew towards the close of the address, he 
seemed to use only the words of Scripture, 
and in his hands they proved themselves to 
be “ the Sword of the Spirit.” The people 
were spellbound, and could hardly be in- © 

86 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


duced to go away, so eager were they to 
have expounded to them the way of God 
more perfectly. Many were born again that 
night. ‘This man so spake that many be- 
lieved. But this was not accomplished by 
eloquence, but by the Holy Spirit speaking 
through him. When deacons were ap- 
pointed, in order that the Apostles might 
give themselves to prayer and the ministry 
of the Word, they sought out “ men of good 
reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” 
When the Apostles at Jerusalem heard that 
Samaria had accepted the Word of God, 
“they dispatched Peter and John who came 
down and prayed that the Samaritans might 
receive the Holy Spirit. Then they laid 
their hands upon them, and they received 
the Holy Spirit.” When God would save 
the Ethiopian Eunuch, it was the Spirit 
who said to Philip, “Go up and join that 
chariot.” When Paul met the Risen Lord 
on the way to Damascus, and yielded to 
Him, Ananias came to the persecutor blind ~ 
and helpless, in his room in the Straight 
Street, and said, “ Saul, my brother, I have 


87 


The Power of the Spirit 


been sent by the Lord, by Jesus, who 
appeared to you on the road, to let you re- 
gain ie sight, and be filled with the Holy 
Spirit.” When Peter, by the vision on 
the housetop in Joppa, had been taught 
the lesson that he was no longer to regard 
Gentiles as unclean, it was the Spirit who 
told him to go with the messengers of Cor- 
nelius, who were awaiting him; and when 
Peter addressed this Gentile Centurion and | 
his friends “ the Holy Spirit fell on all who 
listened to what he said.” And the Jewish 
believers who accompanied him were amazed 
that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been 
actually poured out on the Gentiles. And 
Peter, in describing the scene to the Apostles 
and brethren in Jerusalem, said, “ Just as 
I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on 
them as upon us at the beginning.” It was 
the Holy Spirit who broke down the middle 
wall of partition between Jew and Gentile. 
It was the Holy Spirit who taught the 
founders of Christianity that God ignores 
all boundaries of race, and colour, and 
nation, and that the Saviour is for all 
88 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


mankind. And so when Barnabas, that good 
man who was “ full of the Holy Spirit and 
of faith,” had come down to Antioch to 


inquire what had been happening there, he 


found that as the disciples were worshipping 
the Lord, the Holy Spirit said, ‘* Come, set 
me apart Barnabas and Saul for the work 
to which I have called them.” And after 
fasting and praying, they laid their hands 
on them, and let them go.” These were the 
first Foreign Missionaries. Foreign Missions 
were inaugurated by the Holy Spirit, and 
can only be carried out under His guidance 
and power. It is worth noting how Paul, 
the prince and model of all Foreign Mis- 
sionaries, did all his work under the con- 
trol and guidance of the Holy Spirit. When 
he and his companions had crossed Phrygia 
and the country of Galatia, “the Holy 
Spirit having stopped them from preaching 
the Word in Asia, they tried to enter 
Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not 
allow them.” He had work for them to do 
at Troas. ‘The distinctive thing about the 
work was that wherever they went, those 


89 


The Power of the Spirit 


who believed received the Holy Spirit, and 
were filled with joy. Christianity was dis- 
tinctively the reception of the Holy Spirit 
consequent on believing in Jesus. As Peter 
said in regard to Cornelius and his friends, 
“Can anyone refuse water for the baptism 
of these people, who have received the Holy 
Spirit just as we have ourselves.” That was 
the distinctive mark of the Christian. What 
do we make of that mark now? To what 
neglect has it been relegated ? When will 
the Church ask all her candidates for the 
Holy Ministry this question, ‘“ What reason 
have you for thinking that you have received 
the Holy Spirit?’ Yet that one question 
kindly put might have kept many an un- 
worthy minister out of the Church of God. 
Men-made ministers, if they have not been 
commissioned by the Holy Spirit, are im- 
potent and useless. It was thought an utterly 
abnormal thing that when Paul asked the 
Ephesian disciples, “Did you receive the 
Holy Spirit when you believed?” they 
should have to confess, ““No! We never 
even heard of His existence!” But after 


go 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy 
Spirit came upon them. They needed 
that, ere-they became normal Christians in 
the primitive Church. But now a man — 
“filled with the Spirit ” is almost abnormal. 
He is at any rate something out of the 
common. How ashamed the Church ought 
to be that it is so, and how eager to reach 
again the standard of the early days! 


3. THe CuHurcH MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THE 
Sprrit’s PrREesENCE AND Power. 


And when we. turn to the first Church 
Council at Jerusalem, the members of it 
were so conscious of the guidance and control 
of the Holy Spirit, that, in pronouncing their 
decision, they did not hesitate to say, ‘* The 
Holy Spirit and we have decided.” Is the 
Holy Spirit’s presence and guidance as 
clearly recognized to-day in our Church 
Councils? We rely too much on organiza- 
tion, on business ability, on statesmanship, 
and sometimes on less worthy things than 
these. But do we really believe in the 


gi 


‘The Power of the Spirit 


presence of the Holy Spirit to guide and 
control us? Do we with tremulous eager- 
ness pray for it and expect it? 

Yet there is no greater heresy than to deny 
the presence of the Holy Spirit in the 
Church. A Church without the Spirit is 
dead, and a cumberer of the ground. But, 
notwithstanding our sins, the Holy Spirit 
has not left the Church. He is in the midst 
of us, working in many hearts, and waiting 
to be honoured as in the first days. The 
ignoring of His presence crops up in un- 
expected ways. One of the functions of the 
Holy Spirit is to lead the Church into all 
truth. Yet there are good men who will 
have it that while the Holy Spirit did guide 
the Church into truth in New Testament 
times, and perhaps at the Reformation, and 
during the sittings of the Westminster 
Assembly, He does so no longer. In 
some miraculous manner, according to these 
good men, these Westminster Divines were 
enabled to grasp the whole counsel of God 
for all time, and to express it in forms which 
cannot be improved. And now any attempt 


g2 


The Holy Spirit in the Church 


to depart from their conceptions is branded 
as heresy. This is practically to deny that 


the Holy Spirit is in the Church now, and ee 


to assert that He has no new truths for these 
new days. How absurd is the notion that 
any men have ever grasped or ever can grasp 
the whole truth of God! To attempt to 
crush the Church under the dead hand of the 
past, and so practically to deny the presence 
of the Holy Spirit now to guide her into all 
truth, is perilously near a great sin against 
the Holy Spirit, and is one of the sources of 
the weakness of the Church. While this 
may be maintained in the name of ortho- 
doxy, it is really one of the gravest of 
heresies. 7 

The Holy Spirit was the life of the primi- 
tive Church. He is willing to be the life 
of the Church to-day, and to lead her 
forward into unrealized truths, and un- 
imagined triumphs in the new age now 
opening out before us, if we honour Him 
and put away our sin. To this the Church 
of our day is being summoned by the 
solemn presence of these stupendous events 


93 


The Power of the Spirit 


which are taking place before our eyes, and 
without the Spirit the Church is helpless. 
The paramount need of the Church is to be 
filled once more with the power of the 


Holy Spirit. 


94 


VI 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 
INDIVIDUAL 


“¢To every man there comes at times a consciousness 
that there blows through all the articulations of his body 
the wind of a Spirit not wholly his.””—R. L. Stevenson, 


VI 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 
INDIVIDUAL}? 


Ir may be truly said that the whole mission 
of the Redeemer was to impart the Holy 
Spirit to man in order that He might make 
man holy. And in the New Testament we 
have the record of how this gracious purpose 
of His was actually accomplished in the 
first Christians. It is a mistake to regard 
the Epistles as a quarry for proof texts on 
behalf of certain theological theories. Much 
rather are we to regard them as a record of 
a wonderful Christian experience, of which 
the Holy Spirit from first to last was the 
fountain. For instance, they speak of “a 


1 Scripture Rererences.—Luke xi. 11-13; John iii. 3, 5, 8, 
vi, 63, xvi. 7-14; Acts xi. 15-16, xv. 8-9, xix. 2; Rom. viii. 
2,9, 16, xii, 23 1 Cor, ii. 4, 12-15, iii. 16, vi. 11, 19, Vii. 40; 
2 Cor, iii. 6, vi. 16; Gal. iii, 2-3, 5, 13-14; Eph. i. 17-18; 
Tit, iii. 5-6; Heb. vi. 4-6; 1 Pet.i.2; a hot i, eae 1 John ii. 


20, 27, iv. 2, 12-13. 
| 97 


The Power of the Spirit 


hope which never disappoints us, since God’s 
love floods our hearts through the Holy 
Spirit which has been given us.” “ Think 
what a love the Father has for us in letting 
us be called children of God.” ‘“ We know 
we have crossed from death to life because 
we love the brotherhood.” ‘ And when we 
cry ‘ Abba,’ ‘ Father,’ it is this Spirit testi- 
fying along with our own spirits that we are 
children of God.” 'These are a few indica- 
tions of what these men and women ex- 
perienced of the power of the Spirit of God. 
And the perpetual miracle of the Holy 
Spirit is that men and women in our day. 
have the same holy and happy experiences. 


1. How WE RECEIVE THE Hoty Spirit. 


If any one is in any doubt about this, it 
might be well to consider how we receive the 
Holy Spirit, because it is certain that no one 
need for one moment be without Him and all 
His gracious aid in the conflict of life. And 
if you have not hitherto ‘‘ obeyed the Gos- 
pel,” when you hear how simple the con- 


98 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


ditions are which have to be fulfilled in order 
to receive this peerless gift, will you ask to 
be enabled to fulfil them now, so that in 


future there may be no doubt in your mind — 


that you are in the enjoyment of this, the 
Christians’ heritage? To begin with, do 
_ not forget that there is a natural affinity 
between the Divine Spirit and your human 
spirit. You have been made in the image of 
God. There is a kinship between His 
nature and yours. And it is your high 
privilege that pees the Spirit of God 
you may become “a partaker of the Divine 
nature,” and thus “escape the corruption 
which is in the world through lust.” You 
have~not to fight this battle in your own 
strength. Next remember, that Christ is 
the Giver of the Holy Spirit. It was the 
Baptist who said, “‘ He on whom you see the 
Spirit descending and resting, that is He 
who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” Some- 
times the Lord puts it in another way, “I 
will ask the Father to give you another 
Helper to be with you for ever, even the 
Spirit of truth.” “If I do not depart, the 


99 


The Power of the Spirit 


Helper will not come unto you, but if I 
depart, I will send Him unto you.” And 
when the Spirit came in His mighty power 
at Pentecost, Peter explained it thus, “‘ Up- 
lifted, then, by God’s right hand, and re- 
ceiving from the Father the long-promised 
Holy Spirit, He (Christ) has poured on us 
what ye now see and hear.” The Holy 
Spirit, then, is given by the Father through 
Christ. Christ sends Him. Christ gives 
Him. You cannot have the Holy Spirit 
without Christ or apart from Christ. If 
you would have this Mighty Helper, this 
Comrade God, accomplishing His holy work 
in your soul, ask Christ to give Him to you. 
For it is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. 

But there are certain conditions on our 
part which have to be observed. These 
conditions are, to begin with, ethical. A 
man must be morally in earnest and single- 
minded. ‘This Divine gift is no toy, no 
spiritual luxury to afford us a passing 
pleasurable excitement or enjoyment. It is 
only for the man who is in dead earnest to 
be done with sin. Hence the Lord says, 

100 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


“If ye love Me, keep My commandments,” 
and then He adds (when you have given this 
proof of your moral earnestness), “I will 
pray the Father, and He shall give you 
another Comforter, that He may abide with 
you for ever.” The next condition is Faith. 
John tells us, “‘ This spake He of the Spirit 
which they that believe in Him should 
receive.” It is a condition of our receiving 
this Divine Helper that we should believe 
in Christ. And this is no mere theoretical 
assent to His high claims. It is a personal 
committal of ourselves to Him as Saviour 
and Lord. Then we at once receive the 
Spirit. And when He comes He is ever 
within us the power to a holy life. There is 
nothing magical or semi-physical about His 
coming or influence. Do not confound this 
heavenly gift with any physical sensation, 
or outburst of emotion. He is truth flashing 
into the mind with a light from Heaven. 
He is Divine power coming into the soul to 
destroy the power of evil there. He is the 
very Spirit of Christ Himself suspense 
to us the mind of Christ. 
IOI 


The Power of the Spirit 


One must not overlook the fact that in 
more than one Scripture the reception of 
the Spirit is also connected with Baptism. 
As when Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I 
tell you, unless one is born of water and 
Spirit, he cannot enter God’s realm.” On 
the Day of Pentecost, Peter’s command was, 
“‘ Repent, and be baptized in the name of 
Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins ; then 
you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” 
But lest we should suppose that Baptism is a 
necessary condition of receiving the Spirit, 
or a mechanical cause through which alone 
the Spirit is given, when Peter went to the 
house of Cornelius and his friends, we are 
told “* while he was yet speaking to them, the 
Holy Spirit fell on all who listened to what 
hesaid.”? And afterwards, Peter asked, ‘“‘Can 
any one refuse water for the Baptism of 
these people who have received the Holy 
Spirit just as we have ourselves?” ‘These 
Gentiles were not baptized in order that they 
might receive the Holy Spirit. They were 
baptized because they had already received 
Him through Faith. | 

102 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


2. THe Work OF THE SPIRIT. 


(1) Ats first work 1s that of Regeneration.— 
In regeneration the Spirit does not create 
the spirit of man. He imparts to it a new 
quality of life. The teaching of the New 
Testament is that every man, because of 
the havoc wrought by sin in his soul, needs 
this new birth. When Jesus said inexor- 
ably, ‘‘ You must be born again,” He said 
it to an upright and religious man like 
Nicodemus. It was to him the Lord said, 
“Truly, truly, I tell you unless one is born 
of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter 
God’s realm.”’ It is an unwelcome announce- 
ment. It is humbling to human pride, as 
all the doctrines of grace are. Scripture 
does not deny that in a real sense every man 
is ason of God, one of the offspring of God, 
created in the Divine image. What it 
asserts is that that image has been defaced 
by sin, and must be restored. The basis of 
a new life is laid by i imparting a new nature. 
And this new nature is essential for one who 
would belong to the Kingdom of God. 

103 


The Power of the Spirit 


Spiritual life begins with a spiritual birth. 
It is a strange fact that probably no one is 
conscious of the change at the moment when 
it takes place. The man recognizes that 
something has happened, because he knows 
that now he looks at life, sin, holiness, and 
religion with a new eye. For the first time 
he perceives the beauty of Christ. He is 
conscious that “old things have passed 
away, and that all things have become new.” 
There is a marked severance from the old 
life. Paul writing to the Corinthians de- 
clares that the drunken, the immoral, the 
dishonest, will not inherit the Kingdom of 
God, and he adds, ‘‘ Some of you were once 
like that: but you washed yourselves, you 
were consecrated, you were justified in the 
name -of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the 
Spirit of God.” ‘This is what regeneration 
had done for them. It made them new 
men in Christ. It is well to point out, 
however, that the severance from the old 
life, which marked the experience of these 
Corinthians who had been nurtured in 
Paganism, cannot be repeated in those whose 
104 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


happy privilege it has been “ to be brought 
up in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord,”’ and who cannot remember a time 
when they did not love God. They have 
been children of God from the very be- 
ginning of their lives, consecrated to God 
by devout parents ere they were born, 
dedicated to God in Baptism, and accepted 
by Him. None the less their possession of 
regeneration is due to the Spirit of God. 
Writing to Titus, Paul says, “ But the 
goodness and affection of God our Saviour 
appeared : and He saved us, not for anything 
we have done, but from His own pity for us, 
by the water that means regeneration, and 
renewal under the Holy Spirit which He 
poured on us richly through Jesus Christ 
our Saviour.” He here distinguishes be- 
tween regeneration and renewal. Regenera- 
tion is the initial act, and renewal is that 
which takes place subsequently in sancti- 
fication day by day. He connects regenera- 
tion with baptism, when he speaks of ‘‘ the 
water which means regeneration.” But the 
Spirit is the efficient cause, the baptism is 
105 


The Power of the Spirit 


the occasion, and that in the sense already 
explained. When that great change is 
effected, God’s own life passes into man; he 
is made a partaker of the Divine nature, 
and this imparts a new character to his life. 
As we shall see, it is the very substance of 
Christ’s life and character which becomes 
his.’ For “Sof God, Christ. is made unto 
him sanctification.” 

(2) The Conviction of Sin.—This is nearly 
an invariable experience, though there is 
no hard-and-fast rule in the things of the 


Spirit. One true saint has testified, “The * 


Spirit of God just kissed me awake.” But 
think what agonies John Bunyan had to 
pass through ere he found peace. It is a 
mistake to suppose that this experience 
comes only to those who hold orthodox 
opinions in theology. A very remarkable 
modern instance is that of Miss Florence 
Nightingale. She was a highly intellectual 
and deeply religious woman, but she certainly 
would have declined to sign any of the 
ancient Creeds. Yet her calling to her life- 
work was clearly the work of God’s Holy 
106 


Sa a 


% 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


Spirit. Her parents were wealthy and moved 
in good society. She was an ardent student 
and scholar, winning in personality, and 
distinguished in appearance. But, to her, 
luxury, wealth, gaiety became little less than 
hateful. On 7th May 1852 she wrote, 
“You do not know what it is when one has > 
sinned with such aggravations as I have. 
No one has had such advantages, and I have 
sinned with all these, and after having been 
made to know what sin was, and what my 
obligations were. No one has so grieved 
the Holy Spirit. I have sinned against my 
convictions, and, as it were, standing before 
God’s Judgment Seat.” And again, “‘ The 
sorrows of hell compassed me about. We 
have to know what these are beforehand, 
when we cannot command our thoughts to 
pray, when all our omissions give themselves 
forms of life, and shut us up within a wall 
over which there is no looking, no return, 
when they hold us down with relentless 
power, and we are hemmed in with our 
remembrances, like a cell compassing us 
about.” “The Unspeakable Presence may 
107 


The Power of the Spirit 


be joy and peace unspeakable. But it may 
be a Horror, a dweller on the threshold, a 
Spirit of fear to the stricken conscience.” 
Truly for her the bitter came before the 
‘sweet. It was out of these depths of sorrow 
and distress that she emerged to become to 
so many the Angel of Mercy. This con- 
viction of sin does not always take the form 
of a sense of guilt, or a fear of punishment. 
In some it is more a divine discontent, a 
weariness with life as lived without God, 
and without purpose, a deep conviction of 
not being right with God, and an anxiety to 
get right. Our Lord told us plainly that 
this work of conviction of sin would be 
one of the functions of the Holy Spirit 
whom He would send. ‘‘ When He comes, 
He will convict the world of sin, convincing 
men of sin, of righteousness, and of judg- 
ment; of sin, because they believe not in Me; 
of righteousness, because I go to the Father ; 
of judgment, because the Prince of this 
world is judged.” ‘This is the Spirit’s 
strange work, for He would rather fill the 
hearts of His servants with joy than with 
108 


f —*- 
—— 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


sorrow. But He acts like a skilful surgeon. 
He wounds only that He may heal. It is 
said that coolies on certain plantations in 
the East used to be drugged with. opium 
daily, that they might forget their misery, 
and be content to remain as they were. Sin 
drugs us into a similar spiritual apathy. 
Then comes the Spirit, and stabs us awake 
to our real condition, but only that He may 
bring us deliverance. No one need con- 
gratulate himself on never having had any 
sense of sin. It may be due to ignorance, or 
mere shallowness of nature, or to the searing 
of the conscience. ‘There was a time when 
Paul thought himself blameless. But when 
the Spirit dwelt with him, he thought him- 
self ‘‘the chief of sinners,’? because of his 
attitude to Christ and His Church. 

(3) A third work of the Spirit is enlighten- 
ment.—Like a lamp let down from heaven 
burning with a divine and heavenly flame, 
the Spirit of God illumines the soul from 
within, and opens to us a new world. In 
his wonderful story, The Country of the 
Blind, Mr. H. G. Wells tells of a traveller 

109 


The Power of the Spirit 


who, by extraordinary mischances in his ex- 
ploration, found himself in a land where all 
the people were blind, who had lost all 
conception of the faculty of sight and had 
adapted themselves to their condition. 
When he spoke to them of the wonders of 
sight, of the beauty of the flowers and the 
meadows, and the wonder of the stars, they 
mocked him, and declared that he was raving 
or an imbecile. For fourteen generations 
they had been blind and cut off from the 
seeing world, and the memory of it was 
faded and changed to a child’s story. They 
had ceased to concern themselves with 
anything beyond the rocky slopes which 
hemmed in their valley like a circling wall. 
Blind men of genius had arisen among them 
and questioned the shreds of belief and 
tradition they had brought with them from 
their seeing days, and had dismissed all 
these things as idle fancies. Even so the 
pride of the human mind resents any idea 
that it is wanting in any faculty, or that it is 
not sufficient to itself. Yet the fact remains — 
that the mind unaided by the Spirit of God 
IIQ 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


cannot penetrate the spiritual realm, and 
cannot apprehend or appreciate spiritual 
truth, and even mockingly denies that it 
exists. Paul puts it in this way, “ What 
no eye hath seen, what no ear hath heard, 
what never entered the mind of man, God 
has prepared all that for those who love 
Him ; and God has revealed it to us by His 
Spirit, for that Spirit fathoms everything, 
even the deep things of God.” And he 
adds, “‘ The unspiritual man rejects these 
truths of the Spirit of God; to him they 
are sheer folly, he cannot understand them. 
And the reason is that they must be read 
with the spiritual eye.” There is no truth 
which, however unpalatable it may be to 
the pride of man, is more confirmed by the 
actual experience of multitudes than this. 
They know how true it is that to them, for 
many a day, the mysteries of Divine grace 
and love were no more than “ sheer folly.” 
But one day there came a flash of insight 
from the Spirit of God. They saw the King 
in His beauty, and the things of His King- 
dom were revealed to them. From that 
Iit 


The Power of the Spirit 


moment, two worlds were theirs, one which 
is material and temporal, another which is 
spiritual and eternal. And they can say 
with the blind man whose eyes were opened 
by the Lord, “ Whereas I was blind, now 
I see.” The explanation of the change is 
that a new power of spiritual vision was 
imparted by the Holy Spirit. And if it 
requires a musical faculty to appreciate 
Tchaikowsky, or an artistic faculty to appre- 
ciate Velasquez, why should it appear 
incredible that it requires a spiritual faculty 
created by the Spirit of God to appreciate 
the mysteries of the Kingdom of God? It 
is the function of the Spirit to teach and to 
lead into the truth. One of the commonest 
assertions to-day is that the simple plain 
teaching of Jesus in the Gospels has been 
smothered by the theological writings of 
Paul and the other Apostles in the Epistles, 
and that the whole truth of Christianity has 
been distorted thereby, so that Jesus Himself 
would hardly recognize what the disciples 
have made of His teaching. Now it is right 
to place the teaching of Jesus on a level by 
TI2 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


itself. But we know that, ere He left this 
world, He distinctly promised a Divine 
Helper, even the Spirit of God, to take His 
place when He would be gone, and that one 
of His functions would be to lead men into 
a clearer understanding of the truth about 
Himself. It is not unreasonable that the 
significance of the birth and death and life 
of Jesus should be more clearly understood 
when all had been completed than when all 
was in process. And so the Lord Himself 
said, ‘‘I have yet many things to say unto 
you, but ye cannot hear them now. I have 
told you all this when I am still with you, 
but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the 
Father will send in My name, will teach you 
‘everything that I have said.” ‘“ He shall 
glorify Me, for He will draw upon what is 
Mine, and disclose it to you.” We know .- 
that this Helper came when the Spirit was 
given at Pentecost. And the Epistles which 
unfold the glory of Jesus, and the wonders 
of His redeeming work, are the fruits of the 
teaching of the Spirit in the minds of the 
Apostles. And as He taught them to ex- 
113 


The Power of the Spirit 


pound these things, so now He teaches us 
to appreciate what has been thus revealed. 


3. Tue Hoty Spirit anp THE Work oF 
Curist. 


This leads me to remark that the great 
end of the Holy Spirit’s work is to render 
effectual the work of Christ. Seeing that the 
Holy Spirit, who is God in us, is the Spirit 
of Christ, it is natural that His purpose is 
to make Christ our life, our wisdom, our 
righteousness, our sanctification, and our 
redemption. The Holy Spirit will never 
belittle Christ. He always glorifies Him. 
He unfolds the glory of Christ to the aching 
eyes of the contrite, and reveals the whole 
Christ, in all the excellence of His Person, 
in all the beauty of His life, and in all the 
wonder of His redemptive work. And the 
Church has not yet learned all that the Holy 
Spirit has to teach her in this respect. She 
has failed to present to men acomplete Christ. 

And the Christ she has presented to men has 
not been the Christ they need. Chaplains 


114 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


at the Front mourn over the utter miscon- 
ception of the real Jesus in the minds of 
the men. ‘There has been a too exclusive 
emphasis of Jesus as the Man of Sorrows, as 
meek, gentle, and uncomplaining, as the 
Rest-giver for weary hearts, as the Hope of 
the disappointed. And for young and virile 
men full of exuberant vitality, far too little 
has been made of the joyful, sunny Christ, 
of the Man who had a strange fascination 
for and sympathy with those on whom the 
religious world frowned, of the Christ who 
was so cheery, and so enjoyed the society 
“of all sorts and conditions of men” that 
His enemies called Him “the friend of 
sinners ”?—‘‘ A gluttonous man and a wine- 
bibber”’; too little has been made of the 
courageous Christ who never knew fear, of 
the Man who hated hypocrisy and religious 
pretence more than those failings for which 
the Church has mainly reserved her censures, 
who had an amazing sympathy for the poor 
and the outcast ; of the magnanimous Christ 
who with all His zeal for God made so little 
of any word spoken against Himself; of the 
115 


The Power of the Spirit 


stern Christ who drove out of His Father’s 
House those whose only interest in religion 
was a source of gain; of the born leader of 
men whom young men, when they got to 
know Him, were willing and glad to follow 
to the death. The Church has failed to 
learn what the Holy Spirit has to teach on 
themes like these so as to make Him glorious 
in the eyes of those gallant lads who have 
fought for us, and make them feel that He 
is the Brother, the Friend, the Master, the 
Captain that they need. 

The Epistles are full of the truth that the 
living Christ 1s in us by His Spirit. Paul 
prayed for the Ephesians that “ God would 
grant a mighty increase of strength by His 
Spirit in the inner man,” and then he added, 
“‘ May Christ dwell in your hearts by faith.” 
To him the Spirit of God and the Spirit of 
Christ are interchangeable terms. “ But you 
are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, 
since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Any 
one who does not possess the Spirzt of Christ 
is none of His.” And it is not until the Holy 
Spirit works His holy will in us that the 

116 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


work of Christ for us becomes effectual for 
our salvation. But when He shows us our 
need, and unfolds the glory of Christ as 
our Redeemer, then we embrace Christ as 
the Saviour we need; we make Him our 
own by faith. And then, ‘‘ Of God, Christ 
is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, 
and sanctification, and redemption.” The 
mystical union of the soul with Christ is not 
an esoteric doctrine for the few. It is a 
great practical truth for all believers. 

*¢Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born 

But not within thyself, thy soul will be forlorn: 


The Cross of Golgotha thou lookest to in vain 
Unless within thyself it be set up again.” 


As Paul puts it, “Do you understand that 
Jesus Christ isin you? Otherwise you must 
be failures.” It is the life of Christ; the 
nature of Christ, the thoughts of Christ, the 
virtues of Christ, which the Holy Spirit 
communicated to believers. He moulds us 
after the Master’s pattern. The sanctification 
of the believer consists in the imparting to 
him by the Spirit of those moral and spiritual 
qualities which were found in Christ. 


117 


VII 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 
INDIVIDUAL (continued) 


“O Life Divine— 
Poured out instead of mine— 
O Sacrifice— 
Who by Thy death hast paid my ransom price— 
In Whom I see 
The righteousness which God accepts for me. 


Pour out Thyself within me now; 
Life of my life be Thou; 
As deeper in Thy death I die, 
Rise Thou within and sanctify 
Thy Temple—working in me to fulfil 
O living Chriss—Thy Father’s will.” 
E. H. Divatt. 


120 


Vil 


THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 
INDIVIDUAL (continued)? 


Tue Holy Spirit’s purpose in taking up His 
abode in the believer’s heart is the production 
of Christian character. In the accomplish- 
ment of this, He is the active agent. Paul 
asserts that they (believers in Christ) are not 
to live and act as mere men of the world, 
but that they are to be “ transformed by the 
entire renewal of their minds, so that they 
may learn by experience what God’s will 
is—that will which is good, and beautiful 
and perfect.” ‘They must seek sanctification 
by the Holy Spirit, and sanctification in 
obedience. Sanctification is to regeneration 


1 ScripruRE REFERENCES.—Acts xiii. §2 ; Rom. v. §, viii. 6, 11, 
12, 13-15, 23, 26-27, Xiv. 17, XV. 13,19 5 2 Cor. i. 22, ili, 3, v. 5; 
Gal. iv. 6, v. 5, 16-18, 22-23, 25-26, vi. 8, Eph. i. 13-14, 
18, ii, 21, v. 18, vi. 17-185 Col. i, 8, 293 1 Thess. i, 5-6, iv. 
7-8, v. 23-24; 2 Tim i. 7, 14; Jas, iv. §; 1 Pet. i, 2, Wites 
1 John ili, 9, 23-24. 2 


121 


The Power of the Spirit 


what growth is to birth. It is the Christian- 
izing of the Christian. In this work the 
Holy Spirit is the ever-present agent. He 
nourishes and strengthens the holy life 
implanted. He brings home fresh truth to 
the heart so that it illumines the mind and 
moulds the life. He turns the events of 
life into sanctifying influences. The glory 
of the Christian life is the indwelling of the 
Spirit of God. And the mind He creates 
within us is the mind of Christ. The basis 
of Christian sanctification is the truth that 
a changed nature results in a changed life. 
Make the nature new, and then we shall 
“ walk in newness of life.” 


I. Tue WARFARE WITH SIN. 


The great hindrance to our becoming 
holy and like Christ is the power of sin in 
the soul, which still remains after regenera- 
tion has taken place. Hence there is unceas- 
ing battle going on within, between the 
forces of evil and the new impulses of the 
new nature. And in this spiritual warfare our 

122 


Holy Spirit te the Individual 


Helper is our Comrade God. Paul says to 
the Galatians, “Let your lives be guided 
by the Spirit, and then you will certainly 
not indulge the cravings of your lower 
natures, for the cravings of the lower nature 
are opposed to those of the Spirit, and the 
cravings of the Spirit are opposed to those 
of the lower nature; because these are 
antagonistic to each other, so that you 
cannot do everything to which you are 
inclined.”” And he goes on to remind us 
what some of these doings of our lower 
nature are—‘‘ fornication, impurity, inde- 
cency, enmity, strife, jealousy . . . and the 
like.’ ‘“* And as to these I forewarn you... 
that they who are guilty of such things will 
have no share in the Kingdom of God.” 
And he exhorts us, ‘‘ If we are living by the 
Spirit’s power, let our conduct be governed 
by the Spirit’s power.” \ 

There are few subjects more inscrutable 
than the union in men of body and spirit. 
But we are becoming increasingly aware of 
the amazing interaction between the two: 
of the wonderful influence of the spirit upon 

123 


The Power of the Spirit 
the body, and of the body on the spirit : 


and we are seeing more and more clearly that 
the health of the one is the health of the 
other. Holiness is simply the health of the 
whole man. The great hindrance to the 
sanctification of the spirit is the fact that the 
body is the seat of unruly passions. And the 
conflict between the flesh and the spirit is 
part of the Christian’s experience as depicted 
in the seventh chapter of Romans. Now 
one of the reasons why our Comrade God 
comes to dwell within us is for the sancti- 
fication of the flesh, and to enable the man 
to keep his unruly passions under control. 
This must be done, if there is to be any 
purification of the spirit. As Paul puts it, 
*‘’They that are Christ’s have crucified the 
flesh with its affections and lusts.” This 
means pain and agony. ‘There is no cruci- 
fixion of the lower nature without real 
suffering. It is true that the functions of 
the body are God-given. They are not in 
themselves evil. They may be used in 
accordance with the will of God. The 
problem is how to use them and not to misuse 
124 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


them; how to use them under the control 
‘of the Spirit. What the Christian has to 
crucify is all excess, all unruly passion. 
That is what defiles and degrades. Paul 
tells us, “Do you not know that your 
bodies are a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit 
which is within you—the Spirit which 
you have from God?” And again, “ If 
any man is marring the sanctuary of God, 
him will God mar; for the sanctuary of 
God is holy, which you all are.’ The 
thought of this is to be our great safeguard 
against impurity, for it should fill us with a 
holy fear. How terrible is “the corruption 
which a man reaps when he sows in the 
flesh !”? Therefore the command is given 
with inexorable stringency, ‘Flee from 
fornication; any other sin that a human 
being commits lies outside the body; but 
he who commits fornication sins against his 
own body.” ‘There is no appeal for con- 
tinence comparable to this. And let no 
man say, ‘‘ It is impossible.” Multitudes of 
chaste men have proved that false, and that 
this command can be obeyed. This is a 
125 


The Power of the Spirit 


time when this teaching needs to be uttered 
in trumpet tones. The body is the shrine 
of the Spirit of God, and because the Spirit 
is holy, the shrine must be holy too. ‘'There- 
fore, brethren, it is not to our lower natures 
that we are under obligation to live by their 
rule; for if you so live, death is near; but 
if through being under the sway of the 
Spirit you are putting your old bodily 
habits to death, you will live.” : 


2. Tue Guest oF THE HOLY AND THE TRUE. 


The Spirit makes us holy, not merely by 
delivering us from the bondage of evil habits 
leading to death, but by implanting in us 
holy affections, desires, ideals, and by foster- 
ing within us certain qualities of spirit and 
temper, certain graces and virtues, which 
marked the holy character of the Lord Jesus 
Himself. The Holy Spirit produces in us 
the fruit of the Spirit. In writing to the 
Colossians, Paul mentions that Epaphras had 
informed him of ‘ their love, which is in- 
spired by the Spirit.” And to the Galatians 

- 12 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 
he says, “The Spirit brings a harvest of 


love, joy, peace: patience towards others, 
kindness, benevolence : good faith, meekness, 
self-restraint.”” Yet these things are the 
essence of true holiness; in the exhibition 
of these consists ‘‘ the higher life”; and if 
_ spiritually minded men and women were 
unceasing in prayer to the Holy Spirit 
that such a harvest as this might be found 
in their lives, through His indwelling, and 
thought less of abnormal ecstasies and -ex- 
periences, they would powerfully influence 
the world for good, and commend to others 
the religion of Christ. 

The graces of the Christian character have 
ever a God-ward as well as a man-ward look. 
In this they differ from natural human 
excellences, which are of real worth and 
beauty, but their outflow is directed mainly 
towards their fellow-men. But it is not 
so with the new affections implanted by the 
Spirit of God. There God in Christ is 
supreme, and hence Christian experience 
confirms Paul’s statement that ‘“ God’s love 
for us floods our hearts through the Holy 

127 


x 


The Power of the Spirit 


Spirit which has been given to us,” and con-, 
sequently we can say from the heart, ‘“ We 
love Him because He first loved us.” And 
we should never forget the other graces 
which have a God-ward look, namely, joy 
and peace. ‘These two are a most precious 
part of that lovely cluster, which in their 
combination form ‘‘ the fruit of the Spirit.” 
The Christian will be conscious that he is at 
peace with God because Christ has made 
peace by the blood of His cross, and therefore 
there is now for him “‘no more condemna- 
tion.” And as the result of this, there will 
bea deep inward joy. Paul could speak of 
“ sorrowing, yet always rejoicing,” and ex- 
hort us in the glowing words, “ Rejoice in 
the Lord at all times, and again I say 
rejoice.” 

I fear that this fruit of the Spirit is 
not so commonly seen in the character 
of Christians as it ought to be. They are 
thought by many to be grave, and even 
gloomy. More might with advantage take 
Bishop Hacket’s motto, “Serve God and 
be cheerful.” Few Christians seem to 

128 


f 


— 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 
possess those “‘ happy morning faces’? which 
Stevenson desired. There is much serious- 
ness at our public worship, and often there is 
a decorous earnestness. But why is there not 
more joy? ‘There ought to be in every 
true Christian “ joy and peace in believing 
in Jesus.” And how attractive it is when 
the Christian carries sunshine with him 
wherever he goes! ‘Thus it was that St. 


- Francis and his companions drew to them the 


multitudes in Italy as they passed along the 
roads carolling their songs of Christian joy. 


-It has been my lot to go each day into the 


room of an aged saint and bid her good 
morning. As soon as it is light, it has been 
her custom to get “her books,” namely, 
her Bible and her hymn-book. And many a 
time have I seen on her face such a light as 
never shone on sea or land, transfiguring her 
countenance with heavenly beauty, because 
of the peace and joy within. And the beauty 
faded not from her face with the advancing 
day, but remained, so that many remarked 
on it. But I knew whence it came. If 
more Christians were like this, many would 


129 


The Power of the Spirit 


seek to learn their secret, for the world is 
very hungry for peace and joy. 

There are, no doubt, perils in regard to 
religious emotion, but we stifle it too much. 
When the emotion is real, it ought to be 
expressed, and not crushed down. And how 
better can Christian joy be expressed than 
in Christian song? Says Paul, “ We are to 
shun excess in wine, but we are to drink 
deeply of God's Spirit. And as the result 
there will be a spiritual exuberance which 
will express itself in psalms, and hymns, and 
spiritual songs.” And here it may be 
pointed out that we have no right to pick 
and choose among the various elements 
which compose “the fruit of the Spirit.” 
They are a perfect combination, when the 
cluster is complete, but the absence of any 
one mars the beauty of the whole. It is 
well for a man to have love; joy, peace. 
But what if he be lacking in kindness or 
benevolence? I have known more than one 
instance of the beauty and influence of 
Christian character being marred simply by 
stinginess! There are too many one-sided 

130 


/ 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


Christians. Like Ephraim, they are “as a 
cake not turned.” We should aim at a 
harmonious Christian life, undisfigured by 
any grievous blank or blemish. 


3. Tue NEED OF USING THE GIFT. 


It cannot be too clearly emphasized that 
the possession of the abiding Spirit in the 
_ believer is not a spiritual luxury for his own 
enrichment and enjoyment merely. It is a 
spring of living water in the soul; but it must 
have an outflow, or it will become stagnant 
and dry up. It must flow forth in deeds of 
love, and in acts of willing service for the 
good of others. As we have freely received, 
so we must freely give. There is an essential 
diffusiveness in the life of Christ. If the 
Spirit be in us, the mystic river will begin 
to flow out from us. If we are foolish 
enough to put barriers in the way or attempt _ 
to dam it up, it will be to our loss. For the 
Spirit will be withdrawn. The living water 
will become stagnant. But when we allow 
the river its natural outflow, wherever it 

131 


The Power of the Spirit 


comes it will bring life and fruitfulness, and 
cause the desert once more to blossom as 
the rose. 

The solemn thing to remember is that if 
we do not use the power we have through our 
possession of the indwelling Spirit, it will be 
withdrawn. We must use it, or lose it. 
You may have noticed that each servant in 
the Parable of the Pounds received the same 
amount. ‘This is the gift of the Holy Spirit 
which is common to every believer. But in 
the Parable of the Talents the sums bestowed 
vary, indicating the great differences in the 
endowments bestowed. But all have the 
Holy Spirit. This alone conveys the power 
needed for service, and with the power thus 
given comes a new responsibility. If we 
have a power given for the saving of men’s 
lives, is it not criminal not to use that? 
The slothful servant was afraid of the 
responsibility and shirked it. And you know 
what befell him. Our capacity for serving 
God is not to be measured by our own 
natural abilities, but by the Divine power 
entrusted to us for use. And see what 

132 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


great things the humblest believer may do 
when using that power! ‘T'wo men stand 
out conspicuously in the nineteenth century 
as having accomplished much for the King- 
dom of God—the one was Spurgeon, the 
greatest of evangelical preachers, the other 
was Lord Shaftesbury, the pioneer of Social 
Christianity. ‘The one was converted by an 
unlettered cobbler, the other owed _ his 
salvation to his nurse. When you consider 
what these humble believers accomplished 
by winning these two men for Christ, 
keeping in view the multitudes who were 
and are being blessed by their beneficent 
labours, you see the great possibilities of the 
trust committed to each one of us, would 
we but use it. It is very solemn the con- 
demnation of idleness in the Parable, “Thou 
wicked and slothful servant.” His wicked- 
- ness consisted in his sloth. Let us remember 
that the possession of this gift implies the 
equipment needed for fruitful service, and 
woe be to the man who fails to use it! 
There are varieties of talents, but the same 
Spirit ; varieties of service, but the same 


133 


The Power of the Spirit 


Lord ; varieties of effects, but the same God, 
who is everything in every one. Each re- 
ceives his manifestation of His Spirit for 
the common good. But all these effects 
are produced by one and the same Spirit, 
apportioning them severally to each indi- 
vidual as he pleases. Let each one of us 
daily ask, “Lord, show me Thy gift of the 
Spirit to me that I may use it for Thee!” 


4. Ture PLepcE oF SUCCESS. 


This is found in being “filled with the 


Spirit.” God claims the whole man—body, 
soul, and spirit—for Himself, in order that 
He may fill him with Himself. And so the 
command is given to all, “ Be filled with the. 
Spirit.” As has already been stated, the 


Spirit is not given tous apart from Chiist.'4 


Nor can we have the fulness of the Spirit 
without a spiritual apprehension of the 


fulness of Christ. It is not enough to know s 


Christ as Prophet and Teacher, we must 
know Him also as Saviour and Redeemer, as 
Lord and King. The doctrines of grace, 


134 


> a 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


as they are interwoven with the sublime 
realities of the Person and work of Christ, 
produce in the soul that evangelical humility 
which makes room for the incoming of the 
Spirit in His fulness. When self dies, the 
Spirit reigns within. Christ Himself was 
filled with the Spirit. So at Pentecost were 
the disciples. ‘‘ They were all filled with 
the Holy Ghost.” Frequent references to 
this are made in the Acts of the Apostles. 
The command given by Paul to theEphesians, 
from the tense used, suggests an experience 
both present and continuous. Every be- 
liever has the Spirit, but certainly every 
believer is not “‘ filled with the Spirit,” and 
that we must aim at attaining. The fulness 
of the Spirit is the Divine remedy for the 
low level of Christian living which is all too 
common, and also for the comparative i1m- 
potence of the Church. The whole mind 
of the Church should be concentrated on 
experiencing this fulness of the Spirit. This 
is a higher spiritual stage than “ being born 
of the Spirit.” Egypt always has its Nile. 
But it is the overflow of the Nile which 


135 


The Power of the Spirit 


secures her fertility. Every Christian has 
the Spirit. But it is “the fulness of the 
Spirit ” that renders him “ fruitful in every 
good word and work.” How are we to 
obtain this highest boon of Heaven? ‘There 
must be on our part a full surrender to God. 
We must open every chamber in our souls 
to the Divine indwelling. We must be 
ready that God shall be dominant in every 
phase and department of our life. Not all 
are willing for this. Most of us have 
chambers of the soul locked against Christ. 
While that is so, we cannot be “ filled with 
the Spirit.” When Mahmoud, one of the 
conquerors of India, entered one of the 
Hindu temples, he was besought to spare an 
idol regarded as specially sacred. Heat once 
cut it-down with his sword. And from the 
shattered head there poured forth a shim- 
mering shower of diamonds of incalculable 
value. It is when we strike down all the 
idols of the soul that the wealth of the 
Spirit for us is revealed. The “fulness of 
the Spirit ”’ implies much prayer and com- 
munion with God. “If ye, being evil, 
136 


ee ee ee 


eae ne ees 
Se ee, ee ee 


Se OER Oe 


tl cae 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


know how to give good gifts unto your 
children, how much more will your Father 
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him ?”’ 


There must be continuous asking in the spirit 


of faith and receptivity. It is “by faith 
that we receive the promise of the Spirit.” 


5. Tue Spirit AND PRAYER. 


Avoiding all mechanical conceptions in 
connection with the presence and work of 
the Holy Spirit in our souls, we shall not 
imagine that we have the Spirit in the sense 
that we have a sum of money in a box, which 
will remain there till we take it out. We 


may venture to affirm that even as a tropical Vo 


plant could not live if transplanted to~ 
Arctic snows, so the Holy Spirit of God 
can only live and work in a congenial atmo- 
sphere, and that He cannot and will not 
continue to work in an atmosphere of cold- 
ness, worldliness, or wilful sin. There © 
is only one way by which to retain the 
presence of God in the soul, and that is by 
prayer. In this also, as in all connected 


137 


The Power of the Spirit 


with the spiritual life, the Holy Spirit is 
our Helper. As the Apostle reminds us, 
‘The Spirit assists us in our weakness ; for 
we do not know how to pray aright, but the 
Spirit pleads for us with sighs that are 
beyond words, and He who searches the 


human heart knows what is the mind of . 


the Spirit, since the Spirit pleads before 
God for the Saints.” He tells us too that it 
is “‘ by the one Spirit that we enjoy access 
to the Father.” Prayer without the Holy 
Spirit is not true prayer. There is as much 
difference between true prayer and formal 
prayer as between real and artificial fruit. 
If we do not pray in the Holy Spirit, we do 

not pray at all, and our prayers “ never to 
Heaven go.” ‘True prayer goes to God, 
but it also comes from God. God only 
answers prayers inspired by Himself. It is 
the Holy Spirit who inspires true prayers in 
our hearts. Prayer is partly the act of man, 
and partly the act of the Holy Spirit. It 1s 
a delicate and difficult matter how to relate 
the activities of our moral and spiritual 
nature, and how to distinguish between them. 

138 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


We may gain some insight into this in the 
matter of prayer. The believer knows by 
experience that, when on the Mount of 


Communion, his own personality seems at 


times to dwindle to a vanishing point, while 
the Intercessor breathes forth heavenly 
thoughts and holy aspirations, and God 
answers by flooding the soul with light, and 
love, and power. ‘This is the mystic com- 
munion of Saints with Heaven, and here the 
work of thé Holy Spirit and the activity otf 
our own moral and spiritual nature when at 
its highest commingle in heavenly harmony, 
and flood the soul with grace. And this is. 
needed for the continuance and increase of 
the spiritual life within. Without such 
prayer, the life dwindles and dies. Do we 
attach sufficient importance to this in our 
scheme of life ? The masters of the spiritual 
life have all recognized it, and acted on it. 
Luther used to say, “‘ I am so busy at present 
that I cannot get on without three or four 
hours of prayer.” A friend of mine told me 
that he knew a family with whom a very 


distinguished Cardinal stayed when in Italy 
139 


- The Power of the Spirit 


a few years ago. They said the Cardinal’s 
day was unusual. He rose at four, and at 
five his chaplain, who was also his secretary, 
had to be with him for the transaction of 
business and correspondence. ‘This went on 
till half-past eight, when he breakfasted. 
At half-past nine he retired to his room, 
and the chaplain said that from then till 
twelve o’clock his Eminence spent the time 
in devotion, principally on his knees. When 
my friend asked, “‘ But don’t you find that 
in the days of great pressure of work this 
arrangement must be set aside?” his 
reply was, ‘“‘ It is never set aside for anything. 
His Eminence believes that 7¢ 15 on his knees 
that things are done which really matter.” 
This is how one of the busiest and most in- 
fluential ‘men in our time spends the best 
hours of each day. There is something here 
for Protestants to ponder. 

Finally, this indwelling of the Holy Spirit 
in our hearts is God’s pledge and guarantee to 
us of eternal life. As Paul joyfully puts it, 
“It is God who consecrated me, who stamped 
me with His seal, and gave me the Spirit as 

140 


ee 


Holy Spirit in the Individual 


a pledge in my heart.” Looking forward 
to the mystery of death, and the laying aside 
of this our mortal tent, he says, “ I am pre- 


pared for this change by God, who has given __ 


me the Spirit as its pledge and instalment.” 
And he prays that “the God of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may grant 
you the spirit of wisdom and revelation by 
the knowledge of Himself, illuminating the 
eyes of your heart, so that you can under- 
stand the hope to which He calls us, the 
Wealth of His glorious heritage in the 
Saints.” From these glowing words we can 
understand what an aged saint once said, 
when he was dying, to a friend who called 
to see him, and inquired whether he had a 
hope of heaven. His startling reply was, 
“I have been living there for years.” He 
had drunk in the Spirit of the Apostle’s 
words, and had verified them in his own 
experience. And this is what we all may 
do. The Spirit is now the guarantee of our» 
everlasting felicity. To dwell for ever with 
God is the natural consummation of enjoying 


His indwelling here. We should appropriate 
141 


The Power of. the Spirit 


for ourselves the great words, “Thus you 
are strangers and foreigners no longer; you 
share the membership of the saints; you 
belong to God’s own household; you are 
a building that rests on the apostles and 
prophets as its foundation, with Jesus Christ 
as its Chief Corner Stone: in Him the 
whole structure is welded together, and 
rises into a sacred temple in the Lord, and 
in Him you are yourselves built into this to 
form a habitation for God in the Spirit.” 


142 


VIII 


SINS AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT 


« 


“ Ah, Lord, we all have pierced Thee! Wilt Thou 
be 
-Wroth with us all to slay us all? 
Nay, Lord, be this thing far from Thee and me; 
By whom should we arise, for we are small, 
By whom if not by Thee? 


Lord, if of us who pierced Thee Thou spare one, 
Spare yet one more to love Thy Face, 

And yet another of poor souls undone, 

Another and another—God of Grace 

Let mercy overrun.” 


Curistina G. Rosetti. 


144 


' VIII 
SINS AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT? 


From the preceding studies we have seen 
how great a place the Holy Spirit occupies 
in the teaching of the New Testament, and 
in the experience of the first Christians. 
How very different is the place He occupies 
in the thoughts and in the experience of the 
average Christian to-day! Perhaps this is 
the explanation of much of the superficiality 
and much of the impotence of our modern 
Christianity. It was a familiar cry recently 
in theology, “‘ Back to Christ!” To that 
we have much reason to add, “‘ Back to the 
Holy Spirit ! ” 

When we consider how conspicuous is His 
work in our salvation, that it is He who 
regenerates us, illumines our minds, enables 


1 Scripture ReFERENcEs,—Gen. vi. 3; Matt. xii. 32; Mark 
iii, 28-30; Acts v. 3, 9, vii, 51, viii, pecea Eph, iv. 30; 
1 Thess. v, 19; Heb. x. 29. 


145 


The Power of the Spirit 


us to embrace Jesus Christ, unites us to 
Him, completes His work for us, teaches us, 
guides us, inspires us, moulds us, makes us 
holy, and fits us for the inheritance of the 
saints in light ; when we remember that He 
is Christ’s own continued Presence in the 
Church and in our hearts, our Comrade God 
who abides with us for ever; when we re- 
flect that in Him alone resides the power 
needful to equip us not merely for the tasks 
and duties of each day, but to combat and 
solve successfully the tremendous problems 
that await the Church in the future, it is 
indeed strange that He occupies so compara- 
tively small a place in the thoughts and 
desires and aspirations of believers to-day. 
We must restore the Holy Spirit to the place 
He occupied in the New Testament Church ; 
then, and then only, can it be with us “as 
it was with them at the beginning.” Here 
is our Divine Comrade and Ally come to 
give us the victory in the great war with sin 
in our own souls and in the world. Surely it 
is madness on our part to ignore Him, to be 
ignorant of what He is doing and will do, or 


146 


OE a ge 


ee a 


Po ee a Ee ee nena ae 


ein wie IN 


< 


Sins against the Holy Spirit 


to regard Him with suspicion, or coldness, or 
shrinking, or unbelief. Surely we ought to 
stir up our souls to utter an oft-repeated 


prayer, ‘‘ Come, Holy Spirit! come and work 


in us and for us in Thine Almighty Power, 
for without Thee we are nothing and can do 
nothing.” 


t. A Wrone ATTITUDE, 


There are devout religious people who 
undervalue this Comrade God, this abiding 
Helper, because they are living on the wrong 
side of Pentecost. Their attitude is very 
largely that of Old Testament believers, or 
at least of the disciples of Jesus before 
Pentecost. ‘They cannot say with the 
Ephesian Christians, ‘‘ We have not even 
heard of His existence.” For they have 
heard of the Holy Spirit. But He does not 
occupy His fitting place in their thoughts, 
affections, life, and work. He is not con- 
sciously a living Power in their lives. They 
desire to do the Will of God, and to obey 
the teaching of Christ, and, they say, “ they 
do their best’; but they are often sorrow- 


147 


The Power of the Spirit 


ful, because their religion has so little growth, 
and their service so little fruit. How can 
any intelligent reader of the New Testa- 
ment fail to see that after Pentecost a new 
Power came into the Church for holy living 
and fruitful service, and that the holiness 
and power made manifest in the lives of the 
first believers is all due to the Holy Spirit of 
God? Pentecost was the inauguration of 
the Dispensation of the Spirit which con- 
tinues to this day, and is to abide. And the 
weakness of much of our modern Chris- 
tianity is that we have too much ignored, 
and set at naught, the power He means us 
to use. 

There are Christians who, even yet, do 
not seem to realize that the Holy Spirit of 
God is the birthright of every believer. 
They have the indwelling Spirit, yet they 
ignore Him. ‘They are like a man living in 
penury, while in a secret drawer in the old 
cabinet in his room is a will; which if he 
knew of it and fetched it out, would at once 
place him in possession of vast wealth. The 
document is within his reach, but he does 

148 


ant ee 


Sins against the Holy Spirit 


not know that it is there. So he lives and 
dies in poverty. May God open the eyes 
of every believer to realize that the Holy 


Spirit is within him, and that in Him he has 


the fountain of inward holiness, the spring 
of growth, the secret of fruitfulness, the 
talisman of power, which will enable him to 
do great things for God, and that this our 
Comrade God is waiting and eager to be 
made use of. 

There are various passages which indicate 
the mistaken or definitely sinful attitude 
which both believers and unbelievers take 
up in regard to the Holy Spirit, our Comrade 
God. 


Eiad 


2. Certain Cunpasre Acts. 


(a) Grieving the Spirit.—Paul in his letter 
to the Ephesians says, “‘ Grieve not the Holy 
Spirit of God.” Many are doing this, some 
unwittingly. You may anger a stranger by 
treating him slightingly. You can grieve 
only one who loves you. And the Holy 
Spirit is Holy Love. The meaning of the 
text seems to be, ‘‘ Do not give pain to one 


149 


~The Power of the Spirit 


who so loves you.” Many a young man has 
turned from terrible temptation when the 
thought came home, “That would break 
my mother’s heart.” So it has pleased 
God to put before us a similar considera- 
tion, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of 
God.” We may grieve the Spirit by in- 
sincerity and falsehood, for He is the Spirit 
of truth. All injustice and dishonesty 
is hateful to Him. He is grieved at all 
falsehood in word or deed, at all insincerity 
on the part of Christians towards one 
another, at all fear of truth, at all economy 
of truth, at all evasion, at all pretence. We 
may grieve Him by malice and unkindness, 
for He is the Spirit of Love. How it must 
grieve Him as He accompanies us through 
the day to witness our storms of passion, or 
words of unkindness, our peevishness, our 
jealousy. By Him we have been sealed unto 
the day of redemption, and this is His mark 
of ownership. Surely, then, we shall no 
longer in ways such as these grieve Him who 
so tenderly loves us, and who wants to do 
so much for us. 
150 


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' Sins against the Holy Spirit 


(b) Resisting the Holy Spirit.—Stephen 
said to the members of the Sanhedrin, 
“You do always resist the Holy Spirit.” 


When are we in danger of acting thus? — 


_ If you have not yet yielded to Christ, you 
are certainly doing so. For His whole aim 
and purpose has been all through your life 
to bring you into living union with Christ. 
Have you hardened your heart? Have you 
put off the decisive act to a more convenient 
season? All that means resisting the Holy 
Spirit. But Christians also resist Him. 
Suppose the Spirit wants to lead you to a 
more consecrated life, to a life of much more 
active and definite Christian service, and 
you hang back and prefer your present 
easy-going ways, what are you doing but 
resisting the Holy Spirit ? Only they who 
are “led by the Spirit” are the sons of 
God. But what if we decline to follow 
where He leads? Are we not then resisting 
Him ? 

(c) Quenching the Spirit.—The Apostle, in 
his letter to the Thessalonians, speaks of 
“quenching the Spirit.”” In this figure the 

151 | 


The Power of the Spirit 


Holy Spirit is likened to a fire, and we are 
exhorted not to put it out. How do you 
quench a fire? ‘There are more ways than 
one of doing so. You may refuse or neglect 
to put any fuel on, and then it will gradually 
die down and go out. And if you neglect 
the Word of God, and prayer, and the other 
means of grace, you provide the Spirit with 
nothing on which to work, and His light 
dies out in the soul. Or you may put out 
a fire by putting on what will not burn— 
bad coal or damp wood. Soif you fill your 
soul with earthly things, with worldly in- 
terests and ambitions, or if you constantly 
harbour thoughts of sin or unbelief, the fire 
of the Spirit within the soul will gradually 
flicker out. It cannot live on such as these. 


Or you may put out a fire by pouring water 


on it. So you may put out the holy fire in 
the soul by deliberately harbouring sinful 
purposes, or by wilfully going on in sin. 
Then whatever work of grace may have been 
begun in the heart, whatever holy aspirations 
may have been awakened, will certainly dis- 
appear and cease to be. And when the fire 
152 


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Van ae aiek oeeeeee 


med yg 


Sts; * = ig c 


Sins against the Holy Spirit 


is extinguished in the heart, what is left ? 
Nothing but ashes, and you can make nothing 


of them. So when the flame of the Spirit _ 


is quenched in a human soul, only the ashes 
of a nature remain which seem to be no 
longer susceptible of spiritual life, or open 
to spiritual impressions. It is a terrible 
thing to quench the fire of God’s Holy 
Spirit. 

(Z) Insulting the Spirtt.—The author of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “ Of how 
much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he 
be thought worthy who hath done despite 
to (or insulted) the Spirit of Grace?” 
When are we in danger of doing so? When 
we make light of the Spirit’s work, and 
imagine that we may know all there is to 
know about Christ, or that we may follow 
and serve Him in our own strength, without 
the aid of the Spirit. And do we not do so 
when we presume to do God’s work without © 
the aid of God’s Spirit, and suppose that we 
can accomplish all that is needed by tact, 
insight, earnestness, and the power of human 
sympathy? ‘These can do much, and are all 


153 


The Power of the Spirit 


required. But without the aid of the 


Spirit, not one human soul can ever be 
quickened into newness of life. And are we 
not in danger of this sin when we dismiss 
all thoughts of the Spirit from our minds, 
as if this were something too mysterious to 
be intelligible, or too transcendental to be 
understood by ordinary practical folk? We 
have no more right to ignore what took place 
on the first Whitsunday than that which 
occurred on the first Christmas Day. On 
this last, the Saviour of the world was born, 
and on the former the Dispensation of the 
Spirit began. We may not ignore, despise, 
or insult Him without injury and loss to 
ourselves. 


3. In THE Grip oF ETERNAL SIN. 


There is no more appalling verse in Scrip- 
ture than that in St. Mark’s Gospel which 
says, “ But he that shall blaspheme against 
the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but 
is in danger of eternal damnation.” ‘This is 
known as the Unpardonable Sin, and strikes 


154 


Sins against the Holy Spirit 


the imagination with horror. The expres- 
sion is unfortunate and misleading, for, as 
we shall see, it is never one isolated act of 
transgression, however dark, heinous, or 
flagrant. There have been hideous and 
horrible and revolting deeds done under the 
sun, so loathsome that they do not bear 
talking about. But no one sin is so heinous 
as to exhaust the virtue that flows from the 
Cross of Christ, nor is any single sin un- 
pardonable. What Christ was speaking of 
was not one isolated act, but a persistent, 
continuous course of sinning, culminating at 
last in a state of mind which places a man 
irrevocably outside the Divine mercy to the 
grief of the Divine Love. The proper 
translation of the verse is, “‘ But whosoever 
shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath 
never forgiveness, but is in the grip of (or is 
guilty of) eternal sin, because they said He 
hath an unclean Spirit.” These are the 
~words of Jesus, and note the close and in- 
timate relation between Himself and the 
Holy Spirit. The blasphemy was against 
Him, because they said He had an unclean 


155 


f 


The Power of the Spirit 


Spirit, yet it is called blasphemy against the 
Holy Spirit. ‘The Pharisees had committed 
this sin by taking up a certain attitude 
towards Jesus Christ. They had reached 
this awful state of mind—that they hated 
Christ because of His goodness. They hated 
Him because He rebuked their formalism, 
their greed, their pride, and their hypocrisy, 
and though they knew He was right and 
‘they were wrong, yet they silenced the 
protests of their consciences and hated the 
Truth because He spoke the truth to them. 
One could have understood an attitude of 
doubt and misgiving in regard to Christ on 
their part; He was so different a Messiah 
from what they had been trained to expect. 
There may be this doubt and this hesitancy 
now, for the mysteries are great. ‘This is 
not to commit the sin referred to here, 
There may even be an attitude towards 
Christ of convinced rejection of His claims 
on the part of a man anxious to adhere to 
the truth in so far as he understands it. 
There is an honest disbelief in Christ. But 
this is not committing this sin. Jesus says 


156 \ 


aia 


Sins against the Holy Spirit 


in His magnanimous way, “ Whosoever shall 
speak a word against the Son of Man, it 
shall be forgiven him.” Even in regard to 3 
the howling mob who rejoiced in His death 
He cried, “ Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do.” They sinned in 
ignorance. But this sin is something quite 
different. It is the consciously and de- 
liberately setting oneself against what one 
knows to be right. It is a persistent sinning 
against the inner light of conscience through 
_ which the Spirit of God works. It is doing 
sO without compunction, remorse, or shame. 
It is wilfully rejecting, maliciously perverting, 
persistently opposing what one knows in 
one’s heart to be true. This is the sin which 
cannot be forgiven. And why? Not be- 
cause the mercy of God is outrun. So long 
as there is penitence, there will certainly be 
forgiveness by a God who delighteth in 
mercy. But when a man is in the grip of 
eternal sin, he is in a condition of hard 
and scoffing callousness, he is in a region 
of utter impenitence. For he has said, 


* Evil, be thou my good.’ And the grip: 
157 


The Power of the Spirit 


of this sin grows ever stronger. And after 


a certain stage is reached, he can no longer 


be forgiven, because he can no longer 
repent. 


4. THe True ATTITUDE TO THE 
Hozy Spirit. 


Such are some of the mistaken, dangerous, 
sinful attitudes which men may take up in 
regard to the Spirit of God. May God 
keep us from every one of them! When one 
reflects how patient, how tender, how loving 
the Holy Spirit of God is; when one con- 
siders what our Comrade God has come for, 
to be with us in the great conflict, to re- 
generate us, to strengthen us, to guide us, 
to encourage us, to make us more than con- 
querors at last, surely none of us can ever 
act towards Him thus. The true attitude 
towards Him may be summed up in one 
word. It is docility, the willingness to be 
taught by Him. Jesus has promised, “ He 
will guide you into all truth.” There are 
some whose experience of spiritual change is 


158 


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Fe me Pete ee ee 


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Sins against the Holy Spirit 


sudden. The light flashes on the soul in a - 
moment. But with most it is not so; the 


light dawns gradually as the daylight comes. 


_ The idea of guidance is of a gradual process. 
We place ourselves at the disposal daily of 
the Spirit of God, and He leads us on step 
by step. One thing after another becomes 
clear. It is beautiful to see this process 
taking place in a human spirit, one peak 
slowly climbed and won after another, one 


truth after another being appreciated, till at 


last the soul cries, after long quest, “Thou 
hast set me in a large room. ‘Thou hast set 
my feet on a Rock, and established my 
goings.” We may well believe that this 
being led by the Spirit does not end with 
this life. There will be wonderful new 
discoveries within the veil. For the realm 
of truth can never be fully explored. We 
all know only a small arc of the great circle. 
Let us not be impatient, but wait for the 
_ dawning of a clearer day when the shadows 
shall depart, and all the mists of time. If 
only we be docile, the Spirit will guide us 
unto all truth. And there is this encourage- 


159 


The Power of the Spirit 


ment, “ He that doeth truth cometh to the 
light.” The sincere, honest, upright soul 
cannot finally be left in darkness, but 
cometh ever nearer to the perfect radiance 
of the nightless day. 

And we must honour the Spirit in our 
daily life. He must be more to us than He 
has ever been. Consciously we must look 
to Him for aid each day. And we must 
honour Him in all our work. Without Him 
we can effect nothing for God. That we 
may be vessels meet for the Master’s use, 
we must be empty of self, and filled with the 
Spirit. This means the supremacy of Christ 
in the soul. And the promise is a definite 
one, “He giveth the Holy Spirit to them 
that ask Him.” If there be this constant 
self-emptying, and constant asking, and full 
surrender, then we may be sure that ulti- 
mately we shall be “filled with all the 
fulness of God.” 


160 


INDEX 


ABNORMAL, manifestations 
of Spirit, 14. 

Acts of Holy Spirit, Book 
or, 62. 


Back to the Holy Spirit, 


145. 

Baptism and Holy Spirit, 
IOs. 

Baptism of Christ, Holy 
Spirit and, 44. 

Baptizes with Holy Spirit, 
Jesus Christ, 52. 

Birtn of Christ, Holy Spirit 


and, 39. 
Body, Holy Spirit and, 126. 
Browning, 2. 


Cardinal and Prayer, 139. 

Christ in us by His Spirit, 
116. 

Church, alienation from, 64. 

Church corporate, Spirit 
given to, 71. 

Church, evil of divisions, 
64. / 

Church, Holy Spirit in, 91. 

Church must be pure, 82. 

Completes work of Christ, 
Holy Spirit, 53. 

Conditions for receiving 
Holy Spirit, 110. 

Conviction of Sin, 106, 

Crookes, Sir William, 4. 


Dale, Dr., 18. 

Death of Christ, 
Spirit and, 50. 

Denney, Principal, x. 

Development of Church, 
Holy Spirit and, 86. 

Discipline, the Church and, 
84 


Holy 


| Distinctions in Godhead, 


28. 
Divall, E. H., 120, 
Docility, 159. 
Drink Traffic and Church, 
6A! : 


Emotion, religious, perils of, 


I 30. 

Enlightenment, Holy Spirit 
and, 109. 

Experience, Christian, and 
Holy Spirit, 98. 


Flesh, sins of, 124. 

Fox, George, 80. 

Francis of Assisi, 129. 
Fruit of Holy Spirit, 128. 


Grieving the Spirit, 149. 
Guarantee of Eternal Life, 
140, 


Heresy, denial of Holy 
Spirit’s presence, 92. 
Holiness, the Spirit and, 99. 


| 161 


Index 


Insulting the Spirit, 153. 
Israel, Holy Spirit in, 11. 


Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit 
in, 37: 

Jones, Dr. Tudor, 36. 

Joshua, jealousy of, 70. 

Joy, Fruit of Spirit, 129. 

Kinship, Human and 

Divine, 99. 


Labour 
64. 


Mahmoud and the Idol, 
136. 

Man, Holy Spirit in, 9. 
Ministry of Christ, Holy 
Spirit and, 48. 
Ministry and the Holy 

Spirit, 90. 
Misrepresentation of Christ, 
116. 
Missions, Holy Spirit and, 
8 


and Revolution, 


9. 
Murray, Andrew, 56. 


Mystical union with Christ, 


CTF 
_ Nightingale, Florence, 106. 
Old Testament, Holy 


Spirit in, 12. 


Pentecost, 57. 
Power needed, 63. 
Power of God, 67. 


Prayer, the Spirit and, 137. 
Purity, 125. 


Quenching the Spirit, 151. 


Regeneration, Holy Spirit 
and, 103. 

Reserve of Holy Spirit, 58. 

Revivals, place of, 73. 

Rosetti, Christina, 144. 


Shaftesbury, Lord, 133. 
Sin, war with, 122. 
Spirit-filled Church, 135. 
Spiritual power, want of, 65. 
Spurgeon, C. H., 133. 
Stevenson, R. L., 96. 
Stuart, Dr. Moody, 67. 
Success, pledge of, 134. 


Temptation of Christ, Hol 
Spirit and, 46. ; 

Trinity, doctrine of, 22. 

Tyndall, Professor, 3. 


Universe, Spirit in relation 
to, 6. 

Unpardonable sin, 154. 

Using the Gift, 131. 


| Venereal Disease, 64. 


Wells, H. G., 19, 109. 

Women, Ministry of, 69. 

Work of Christ, Holy Spirit 
and, I14. 

Wrong attitude 
Holy Spirit, 147. 


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